


Pitch Black's Midnight Fright

by lilyeverlasting



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU-1930s USA, Dark, Dubious Consent, Horror-themed circuses and handsome ringmasters tempt pretty boys to choose the dark side, Language, M/M, Original Character(s), Out of Character, Prick!(and talking!) Sandy, Sexual (but not overly explicit) content and themes, Sultry!Tooth, Tragedy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:25:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyeverlasting/pseuds/lilyeverlasting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's mother warned him about the Devil. Too bad he already sold his soul.</p><p>A horror-themed circus, a devilishly handsome  ringmaster, some darker themes, and love triangles ensue. rotg kink meme fill! Prompt can be found inside.</p><p>3-shot (okay it's a little longer than that. Either way this is a short story)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude to a Nightmare: The Ringmaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truth was, Jack had already sold his soul to the Devil, and he had no intention of handing back Jack's soul.

_Come one, come all!_

_To the circus by the Falls_

_We’ll make you scream_

_We’ll make you cry_

_Until your sides split_

_With laughter!_

_So come right up,_

_Don’t be shy!_

_The tickets won’t last long!_

_Before your very eyes you’ll see_

_Your darkest nightmares turned to glee_

 

 

Jack’s mother had warned him about the Devil.

_“You listen to me, Jackson Overland. There are three things you need to know to survive in this world. One is to always keep your head. Two is never lose faith. Three is don’t go makin’ bets you can’t pay up on. If you wanna make a deal with the Devil, you’ll never get that soul o’ yours back, you hear?”_

Jack felt his heart beat in rhythm with the crowd’s gasps, a hush falling like a hiss of breath as the Marionettes finished their number, tumbling away behind trailing tongues of streamers and fishnet stockings. The tightrope _twanged_ , and Jack looked down. He almost laughed at the crowd, clustered in their seats, holding each other close in the dark. Every eye was watching, but Jack only cared for the burning gaze of the man far below, bathed in the blue pool of the spotlight. The ringmaster tipped his hat with a bow, a shower of cards spilling onto the floor, sparking. From the smoke rose hideous sneers, faces and teeth and cackles. Someone laughed nervously. A woman shrieked. The ringmaster cut through the smoke and stepped towards the crowd, arms outstretched like the mockery of a savior.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, hold your seats, your wife, your children tight. And be amazed,” he paused to look up, and Jack met his kohl-rimmed gaze, sharp as glass and just as cutting. Those eyes burned through flesh and bone and soul. Jack trembled on the tightrope. The ringmaster smiled, and Jack felt the blood rush through his veins, spiked with adrenaline. He was on. This was his queue. He looked away from the ringmaster.

“By Pitch Black’s Midnight Fright!” The ringmaster twirled his cape with a flourish, disappearing with a _pop!_ and a plume of smoke that parted like a fanged mouth. It rushed toward the crowd with a maniacal laugh. Women screamed, children shrieked, and the circus began. A siren pealed for effect, and dwarves dressed as goblins paraded out from behind a backdrop curtain, armed with pitchforks, torches, and ghoulish faces. A seemingly headless horsemen herded them around the ring, pausing to ride and thread through the seats. A lizard man hissed and blew fire from his mouth in the center ring. All the while the Marionettes sang in voices that chimed like bells:

 

_Welcome to the Nightmare Ring_

_Where nothing’s as it seems_

_But if you run you’ll never see_

_The monsters from your dreams_

The spotlight waved, drifted, glared, and then Jack stood in its glow. The crowd gaped, and Jack thought of his mother.

_One is to always keep your head._

Bare footed, Jack leaped, pounced, tumbled over a woman dressed like a harpy. He never lost his footing. She glittered with costume jewelry and and a rainbow feather headdress. She blew Jack a kiss, pretending to chase him across the tightrope. She snapped her fangs and reached for his neck, shrieking about an unfair lover. Prosthetic wings burst from her shoulders, and Jack pretended to swoon with fright, falling over the edge of the rope, where nothing but a hard ground awaited him. The crowd wailed.

It was his favorite part of the act.

_Two is never lose faith._

He landed against the hard chest of Pitch Black, and the crowd sighed with relief, laughing when Pitch made a show of leaning over Jack like a mournful lover. He raised his cape to obscure Jack from view, as if to plant a silly kiss to wake the sleeping beauty. The crowd laughed harder, but Jack could hear his heart beat louder. He stiffened in Pitch’s hold, pushing against the ringmaster instinctively, waiting for the trap door beneath him to swallow him whole. A cold finger trailed down his chest, tapping against his heart, and Pitch whispered with a sigh, “Don’t fight it, Jack,” so closely Jack could feel cool breath fan across his face. He didn’t open his eyes.

Lips grazed over the corner of his mouth, and Jack’s eyes snapped open the minute the trap door released. He fell watching Pitch’s eyes, gold and bright as embers until he felt suspended in space. Then the trap door squealed as it shut, Jack landed hard on sacks of flour and winced, rolling off with a cough and a grimace. He waited to hear the crowd scream from the bats that would fly out once Pitch waved his cape to reveal Jack had disappeared.

He coughed again, brushing flour from his dark hair, bumping into an angry little dwarf smoking a cigarette.

“Watch it, dumbass!” the little man shouted, flipping Jack the bird, and suddenly Jack found himself alone in the underground, wading through performers and ghouls and smoke machines with dry ice. He bumped into the Wolf-Man and caught the startled yelp before it could climb from his throat. Wolf-Man rolled his eyes and complained about fright-show wannabes afraid of their own shadows. Sheepish, Jack kept walking. From a crack in the ceiling, Jack watched Pitch in the ring above.

_Three is don’t go makin’ bets you can’t pay up to. If you wanna make a deal with the Devil, you won’t get that soul o’ yours back._

Somehow, Pitch’s eyes found Jack through the crack in the floor. Jack swallowed, heart skittering in his chest, and Pitch smiled, honey-slow. The screams of the crowd were muffled underground, but Pitch’s eyes were bright with euphoria. His chest heaved with a hungry breath, and Jack knew it was the fear. The ringmaster was alive with it.

 _Don’t fight it, Jack_ , Pitch had whispered, and Jack could still feel the cold sear of Pitch’s fingertips trailing down his skin, the scars of Pitch’s kisses on his neck; warm breaths gusting over his ear and dark whispers that sent shivers up his spine until he arched into the ring master’s touch.

Truth was, Jack had already made a deal with the Devil, and he had no intention of handing back Jack’s soul.


	2. Fear and Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You and I, Jack...We could live forever in this miserable world."
> 
> Songs mentioned:
> 
> "Ain't Misbehavin' " by Louis Armstrong (1929): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0Es-Hdpn0
> 
> "Georgia on My Mind" by Hoagy Carmichael (1930): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY9RS1x8iHE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Porumbita", according to a couple Google searches (lol), seems to roughly translate to "little dove" or "my dove" in Romanian. If anyone knows any better, please correct me.

 

 

 

_“Ain’t misbehavin’! I’m savin’ my love for youuuuu!”_

Someone was spinning a Louis Armstrong record, and from the voice, Jack knew it was Toothiana. He laughed a little, following the husky alto and drifting over to Wardrobe, where oil lamps flickered and costume jewelry sparkled like lost treasure. A circle had already formed, and Toothiana was tap-dancing in the center. Jack leaned against the door, watching, a grin on his lips. Only thing better than the circus itself were the characters who ran it. Toothiana caught his eye, her grin promising friends and wine and forgotten memories for a little while.

But that was the thing about memories. They never truly went away, no matter how good a time he was having.

Above, Jack could still hear screams of horror and excitement, the drone of Mr. Black’s voice that still somehow curled around his ear. He shivered, rubbed his arms, shook them like they were going numb, but Pitch’s voice was never too far away. _He_ was never too far away, Jack realized, another spine-tingling burst of nerves racing through his veins as the show wore on. How many nights had he retired for the night, just looking for a little peace to wonder alone about the family he’d left behind, only to feel those eyes on the back of his neck? How many after-show parties had he left, retreating for the gloom of the train, for the car he slept in, only to have Pitch materialize in the dark? The night Jack had signed his life away, Mr. Black had sipped his wine, grinning like a cat with a mouse, lounging in his lavishly furnished car with its heavy velvet and blood red decor, jazz spinning in the corner. So different than Jack’s mother’s sparse kitchen; but Mama's kitchen had never felt lonely like that car, not with Jack singing along with her to “You Are My Sunshine” on bright, dry days. Jack remembered hesitating, the quill hovering over the paper, suddenly unsure.

Mr. Black had grinned wider and said, “Are you sure, Jackson? Once you make your bed, you have to lie in it. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?” He’d licked the wine from his lips and waited, chuckled when Jack swallowed his fear and signed his name.

“Atta boy! You’re going to love it here, Jackson. I can tell.” And Mr. Black had smiled in a way Jack never forgot.

 

“Do y’all wanna know why I sold my soul to the Devil?”

Jack snapped out of his reverie, and looked to Toothiana who was wrapping a feather boa around her shoulders, still humming to Louis Armstrong. She drank from a box of wine a clown handed her, and the gathered performers hooted. Jack looked away, but he felt Toothiana’s eyes lingering on him a moment too long. He stared at his feet, still leaning against the door, arms crossed over his chest. His face burned.

Toothiana laughed. “Hey, bad boy, you’re gonna burn a hole in the floor if you keep lookin’ at it like that.” The others turned, noticing Jack for the first time. A few waved, others ignored him.

A redheaded dwarf, Sanderson, muttered in between puffs on his cigarette, “Well, look who it is. It’s Black’s newest star. Come to greet the little people before your big debut?”

Jack saw red, thought of saying _fuck off_ , but he bit his tongue and chuckled. Instead he said, “That’s why I had to find you, Sandy.” The others guffawed loudly, and Hugh the demon clown slapped Sanderson on the back. Sandy glowered, and Jack met his challenging glare head on.

Sandy sneered, looked away from Jack to Toothiana and said, “Tell us, baby. Tell us why you sold your pretty little soul.”

Jack was quickly forgotten. He exhaled in relief, rolling his shoulders and trying to calm his nerves, curb his anger. Mr. Black had given Jack his own act, much to the dismay of some of the performers that had been there longer, some of them for half their lives, and still they were extras, still they were low on the circus food chain, and hadn't seen a raise in years. _His very own act,_ Jack heard some of them whisper,  _whaddaya he think he did to deserve that? What's_ he  _got that we don't have?_ Jack fidgeted nervously, trying to keep from ticking off the seconds until he was on, trying to ignore some of the cutting looks he was getting. Trying to drown out the ringmaster’s voice from up above, and trying to ignore the way his stomach twisted.

Tooth sang, “Bright lights, big city, baby!” She twirled in her costume, throwing back a big swallow from the box of wine, “And I ain’t never goin’ back to that shithole. Why, when I saw handsome Mr. Black coming up the road, I knew I was as lost as any sinner!” She pretended to swoon, much to her audience’s glee. And Jack laughed, forgetting for a moment.

“And who wouldn’t look at Mr. Black and not get starry-eyed!” Peggy Sue, another acrobat, sighed.

“And how!” Toothiana trilled in agreement, and she winked at Jack, who smiled and looked away. Heat prickled along his neck, his face, everywhere, just at that thought. He cleared his throat and pretended he had something to look at.

Sanderson grumbled, rolled his eyes, and muttered, “If you’re into scary ol’ birds.” Jack snorted, laughing despite himself.

“Don’t be jealous, Sandy, baby. You’re the bees knees, you know.” Toothiana winked, throwing her boa over Sandy's neck and tugging him forward. The others laughed and cat-called, but Sandy only smirked. Then the ringmaster's voice was everywhere, and Wardrobe quieted to listen.

 _“And now, the morbidly mystifying, the incredibly terrifying, Man-eating Tigers of Nepal!”_ Jack heard Pitch Black shout. He imagined the ringmaster waving his arms with a flourish, smirking like he had a secret no one else knew. And Jack imagined Mr. Black after the show, how he would act, talk, move. Because Jack had seen it all before. The voices of his fellow performers seemed to flit away, afterthoughts Jack wouldn’t be able to remember as he imagined the ringmaster.

“ _Hello, Jack_ ,” Mr. Black would say, and Jack could picture him, like a daydream tinged with too much reality. Maybe a nightmare, some days Jack couldn’t be sure. Jack could see the way Mr. Black’s lips would curl into a smile; hungry, devious, but oddly sensual. He would still be wearing the tuxedo from the show with the velvet lined cape, still smell like kerosene and wine and smoke. The white gloves would still be on his hands. Rough hands, with long, elegant fingers, like a pianist’s.

Jack remembered lying in his bunk one night, throat dry, watching as Pitch slowly removed those gloves, finger by finger. Those gloves were softer than silk. Jack knew, because Pitch Black would cup his chin, forcing Jack to look at him. During those many nights, Jack would think how soft the gloves felt on his skin. He would sit and pray, pray to a God he wished he knew, when his blood roared at the Ringmaster’s touch, when lust clawed through reason and fear bit deep. He wished Pitch Black would leave, let go. _Don’t touch me!_ He remembered snarling that very first night, even though he ached for it. He couldn't explain the attraction, the pull.

 _“Are you afraid, Jack?”_ Mr. Black had asked one night, and Jack never answered. He wondered where his bunkmates went in the middle of the night. Wondered if, somehow, Pitch had something to do with it. Still, he never did move from his bed. Pitch Black sat at the edge of the bunk, legs crossed, lighting a cigar. It smelled like cherries, Jack remembered.

“ _Jack, Jack, Jack. Isn’t this what you wanted? A home away from home? A chance for escape? For adventure? You signed your contract. I trust you’ll come to find Midnight Fright to be a rather…exotic experience._ ”

Jack could never find his voice, it was always lost in the pit of his throat. Then Mr. Black’s fingers would tug at the collar of his shirt, and Jack would be powerless to say no, even if some nights he wanted to. The ringmaster would whisper to Jack about how lovely he was, and that it was alright to be a little afraid at first. Mr. Black loved fear, and if Jack would stop fighting it, if Jack could just let it be, he’d see the power in a little fear. And Jack realized how Pitch’s eyes burned with an eerie light, how his own fear seemed to invigorate the ringmaster. How, someway, Pitch was even more handsome and terrifying than before with just a little taste of it.

 _Don’t fight it, Jack. It’s who you are._ There would be hands on his chest, in his hair, lips whispering against his mouth. Did Jack know he was beautiful? _Amazing. Amazing. Amazing._ Those lips were trailing from the hollow in his throat, down his chest, brushing his belly button…lower, lower, lower, until Jack’s world grew black and he saw stars behind his eyelids.The ringmaster’s eyes would burn brighter, his grip would become tighter, and Jack would wonder if magic existed, forgotten in a corner in lonely places of the world. He would try to remember his parents in Oklahoma and the Ten Commandments and his father spitting the word _fairy_ and how angry he’d be as Pitch blew out the oil lamp. But Jack gave up, stopped trying to thwart Pitch Black.

 _The dark isn’t so scary, Jack._ And the dark was a bliss so wicked, so intoxicating, Jack was lost to its power. The rhythmic pants and breaths, like forbidden music, and spine-curling orgasms. He’d forget why it was supposed to be a sin, as Pitch Black’s fingers dug into his skin, his shoulders, everywhere, as they rocked together in the dark-

There was a muffled _bang_! and the group sitting in wardrobe howled and screamed with laughter at the sound. Jack started, blinking, looking around, as if anyone in the room would be able to see his thoughts broadcasted above his head like an X-rated picture show. Wolf-Man rolled his eyes again. Toothiana danced faster in tune with the eerie music from above, already tipsy, all feathers and lipstick and pasties, her black hair fanning loose. There were whistles and more cat-calls, and Toothiana paused to throw Jack a sultry grin, blow him another kiss. He chuckled, rubbed the back of his neck, and went to sit between surly Sandy and Matilde, the fat lady (whose stage name was Queen of the Cannibals. The crowd never realized all she ate was chicken and ribs). She patted his arm like a grandmother.

“Oh, Jackie, that opening act nearly made me swoon with fright. You’re getting good on the rope, honey!”

Jack laughed, imagining the tightrope and falling against Pitch’s chest. He imagined what his father would say if he could see Jack now. What he’d say if he knew. Unnatural. Not right. Come home. Jack shook his head, nicking the thought. “Nah, it was all Tooth.”

Matilde clucked in her fake ballroom gown in all its sequins, stretched too tight at the seams. “A little birdie told me Mr. Black likes you! And that you’re getting your own act tonight!”

Jack’s heart jumped again at the name Mr. Black. There were times the circus felt too empty, with Jack sitting in the middle of it all, either liked instantly or despised by the other performers for Mr. Black’s obvious favoritism. _Hasnt even been here a full year,_ some would sneer, _and already he's got his own act? What makes_ him _so special?_

 _Don’t fight who you are because of them, Jack_ , was all Mr. Black would say later. _They see you, and they envy you, with reason._

He opened his mouth to reply, but then Tooth started to yell in a sing-song voice, stretching her arms out wide and doing the splits for her finale. Jack laughed with the others, forgetting for once. Smiling, Toothiana threw the box to Wolf-Man. His turn to talk. A game had begun. Sanderson spoke up, eyes bright with curiosity.

“Tell us, Wolfie, how’d you end up here? You ever gonna shave that puss?” Everyone laughed, and Wolfie growled, stroking the hair on his face contemplatively. He took a swig, throwing the box without a word. Sanderson threw a dress at Wolf-Man’s face out of sheer disappointment. The box of wine sailed, and Jack held his hands up reflexively.

He caught the wine, and the room hushed. For a moment, all Jack heard were the bangs and the screams and hiss of the tigers. Must be time for the Orson triplets to get eaten again. Sanderson sighed and said, “Oh, look, the baby caught the wine.”

“Oh, shut it, Sandy,” Tooth snapped, draping herself across his lap. Sanderson shut up, running fingers through her hair. “Jack ain’t no baby, right, honey?” She flashed Jack the type of grin she used to get someone into bed, violet eyes hooded and sparking with mischief. Jack looked away from her knowing eyes again, took a swig, grimaced. He didn’t say anything but he thought, _I’m no fucking kid_. He'd be eighteen in three months come November.

“Pssh, I bet my big toe is more interesting than how he ended up here,” Sanderson scoffed. Everyone chuckled. Jack felt angry heat rush to his face as Sandy pressed on.

“Let me guess. The classic ‘kid who ran away from home’ deal. Bet you had a decent house to live in, parents who gave a shit, and you were too much of a brat to notice-”

“Sandy, baby, why d’you gotta be such a wet blanket!” Tooth sighed, putting her finger to his lips. Sandy’s orange eyebrows shot to his hairline. Toothiana threw a glance over at Jack, who was steaming silently, the wine bitter on his tongue. Judgment, he thought, was cruel.

Somewhere above him, he heard Pitch cry out, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for an act so chilling, so deliciously wicked, you’ll never look at frost the same way again-” Jack felt his body tense. It was time. He started to move away, until he felt fingers grip his wrist. He stopped, blinking at Toothiana.

“He gets mean when I let him drink,” Toothiana was saying, and Jack blinked, realizing she was apologizing on Sanderson’s behalf, who rolled his eyes.

“Oh, now you let me drink? I thought I had a choice.”

“You love it when I call the shots,” she purred, and Jack rolled his eyes, pulling after he gulped down another swig of wine. He tossed it back to Toothiana and rolled his shoulders, steeling himself.

“I’m on,” he said, shaking his head like he could shake the fuzzy thoughts from the wine, and the others whispered. Matilde patted his arm again as he passed.

“Knock ‘em dead, Jackie.”

“With those pretty brown eyes? Please! Even the married men will have dreams of Jack Frost tonight. I know I will.” Toothiana’s lipsticked mouth curled into a smile, and Sanderson frowned. Jack cracked a lopsided grin, but he could feel the heat of his embarrassment and excitement snaking up his neck.

“Hey Jack,” Sanderson called out, and Jack paused to look over his shoulder. The music for his new act was beginning to trill, the notes of the flute high and loud, but he still heard Sandy crystal clear:

“What is your story, anyway? Who were you before the Fright?”

Jack smiled, tugged on the masquerade mask hanging around his neck until a winter demon’s face was smiling back at the group. “Thought your big toe was more interesting?”

Sanderson scowled while the others passed around the box of wine and shared stories of days before Midnight Fright. Days they’d never get back. Jack climbed the stairs leading up to the stage, Pitch’s voice dark and velvety in his ears. His gut twisted, something that happened before each act, and he rolled his shoulders to ease the tension, telling himself it was only nerves. Not the thoughts of oh-so-familiar whispers tickling his ear from that very same voice.

 _Don’t fight it, Jack. It’s part of you now._ I’m _part of you._

Jack stopped thinking. He stepped out, just inches away from the spotlight, too bright and too blue, workers backstage already getting the audience worked up on the sound effects: howling wind, shattering thunder, an ice machine that blew flurries out at the audience and made them shiver in their seats. The Marionettes began to sing:

 

_Whose teeth nip at your nose when the weather gets cold?_

_Whose breath blows snow when the day gets old?_

 

Pitch Black spread his arms, cape billowing, and looked to the darkened corner, right where Jack was standing. Something inside Jack tightened, released, seized up again, like a stomach ache. He wondered if he was afraid. Hands were gripping his waist, tugging and pulling. He realized he was being hooked up to the rope. Pitch Black’s smile widened, an easy happiness flushing his cheeks, like he’d just eaten his fill.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!” Pitch bellowed, grinning ear to ear before bending into a sweeping bow and leaping out of the spotlight. Jack felt himself rise off the ground, but still, Pitch’s eyes never strayed. Jack could feel his gaze, brighter than any exposing light. From the backdrop curtain, Jack’s “winter minions” were dressed and ready to scare. They began to skulk towards the audience in the dark.

“Jaaaaaack Froooooosstttt!”

Jack swooped down on the unsuspecting audience, laughing and sneering and touching faces with cold fingers, while they screamed and the lights flickered on and off until time seemed to slow, until it seemed like Jack Frost was all he was.

_What is your story? Who were you before the Fright?_

In the air with the ice, Jack thought of his days before Midnight Fright. Before Jack Frost.

Before Pitch Black.

 

* * *

 

Papa loved to gamble.

 

Mr. William Overland was a respectable man. A farmer with a decent wife, a son and daughter he was proud of. He never hit his wife or struck his children, and he went to Mass every Sunday, God bless his gambling soul. He always lent a helping hand, and was just as quick to deal a couple twenties under the table when no one was looking.

 

Pops liked to say, “No place better to live ‘n die than Oklahoma, and no place better to dream than the Poker table.”

 

Jack remembered Oklahoma. With its bright sun and flat, used-to-be-green fields and air that smelled like dust and hay and whiskey. He remembered the plow horse, Bessie, the corn field that could’ve stretched to Heaven and back, the one he used to chase Laura in until she shrieked and laughed, clinging to Jack like a burr on his neck. She had a laugh like sunshine, something that warmed him even on cold days. Then there was the barn that Grandpa Overland built. Aster liked to say it was haunted when the wind blew. Jack remembered hot, sticky summer nights, lying in the hay loft, lamps lit. Aster would lie on his belly in the hay loft, hay in his hair, green eyes bright with mischief, lips curled in a grin so wide it dimpled his cheeks. He’d whisper _Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!_ until Jack elbowed him in the side and watched the dark corners a little more closely when Aster wasn't looking.

Aster. His best friend.

“Never gonna meet another fella like you, Jack,” he remembered Aster saying. “And that’s okay. Only need one you.” His gaze had lingered too long. Jack could feel Aster’s gaze on his eyes, his nose, then his lips, and Jack remembered thinking Aster was close. So close. He could see the green in his friend’s eyes, the gold that rimmed his pupils even under the weak light that spilled out of the barn. Jack knew that look. Knew it from somewhere, but he laughed and teased before he could think about it too long, and suddenly the thought was gone.

“Aw. Gettin’ soft on me?”

Aster guffawed. Jack had shoved Aster playfully, told him to stop getting so sappy. They were sixteen and drunk and stupid, yelling at the night sky and falling to their asses in the grass when trains roared past, 'cause they thought they were invincible and were walking on the railroad while they shared a bottle of moonshine that made their throats burn and their eyes water. And the next morning, Aster seemed to forget he'd said anything to Jack at all. But there was never another fella like Aster, and Jack liked it that way. Some of his best memories were with Aster. One time they booby trapped the barn with buckets of cold water and trip rope, and he'd never laughed so hard as he did when Pops got drenched. Summer heat and each other were all Jack and Aster could have known right then, and that was all that mattered.

There were days they'd stuck firecrackers in anthills when they were younger, laughing until their sides could’ve split open. Some afternoons when they were bored and tired with working in the fields, they whistled and teased Farmer McClusky’s girls when they walked up the dirt road to town, all five of them. On days off, they’d listen to the Lone Ranger on the radio, or even a Yankee’s game if it was on, waiting for word on the Babe, drinking Mama’s lemonade and imagining they had a future with some kind of adventure or fame.

With Aster, some nights seemed infinite. No trouble. The Depression seemed like a fairy tale villain, something that couldn’t touch the farm. Not yet. Life was just farm work, Mama singing, Laura laughing, and Pops saying he was _proud_ of Jack.

“Good boy you got there, Will,” Jack remembered Father Alloroy saying one Sunday, and his father had grinned broadly. Will clapped Jack on the back like he was the only decent boy in the whole state.

“Don’t I know it.”

And Jack would say Pops was a great man, the best father in the world, and he’d never once think of Mama telling Pops in the middle of the night, _You’re gonna suck us dry, Will, gonna damn us all to hell._

And he did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ***

The Dirty Thirties caught up with Jack, caught up with the farm, and Pops would go to bed telling God he was sorry for all his cheating and gambling, if only the Good Lord would find it in Him to save the farm’s crops. By the next summer of 1934, Cimarron County had turned to dust, and Keyes, Oklahoma was nothing but a dry, eye-stinging patch of hell.

Once Jack saw a dust storm brewing on the horizon, a great ugly wall of dirt barreling towards the farm. Jack had thought _Mama was right, and now it’s comin’ for us_. Mama had closed all the windows and said, _Jesus_. When it hit the house, dirt seeped in through cracks in the walls, under the door, like fingers reaching for an ankle. The next day Jack would hear about Mr. Whittaker’s boy, who got lost in the cloud, couldn’t see a thing. He stumbled into a creek and drowned.

“Heard a nasty rumor ‘bout that kid and the ranch hand. Heard he was a faggot.” Pops said at dinner, and Mama hushed him, white-faced.

“Y’got a girl, son?” Pops asked later that evening, and Jack smiled, talked about redheaded Annie McClusky until his father roared and patted him on the back and said, “Atta boy!”

Jack went to bed, breathing dust, a hole in his heart. When he saw Aster later Jack couldn’t look him in the eye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ***

 

Money went quick after that, and Pops couldn’t stop. Jack remembered seeing his father’s footprints run circles in the living room in the early morning when Mama hadn’t swept the dust away, as if a ghost had visited during the night. Some nights Jack let Laura sleep in his bed, because she was crying too hard, she was so hungry her belly hurt, and Mama’s yelling scared her.

“Are they ever gonna stop?” she’d whisper, and when Jack would tell her to go back to sleep she’d say, “We need a miracle…something magical. D’you think God has magic?” Jack tried to make her forget her worries, tickled her and joked until tears streamed down her face from laughing too much. Jack told her if she closed her eyes hard enough, she’d see magic.

Jack slept on the floor in the dust, next to the door, listening to his parents fight. Some nights Pops got in the truck and left, and Jack would see him stumbling back inside, reeking of gin, when the sun rose.

“One day I’m gonna win big,” he kept saying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ***

One morning at the general store Jack told Aster, “Some days I just wanna pack up and go. Anywhere. Gotta be someplace better.”

Aster had said, “Then why don’t we?” Jack remembered Aster kicking dirt. He kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers, his eyes dark under the brim of his hat, looking like he would have gone anywhere in the world in that moment if Jack would only go with him.

“New York’s where it’s at. We could hop a train, get out of here so fast no one would miss us. Just the two of us.” He was walking closer now, and Jack shivered when their hands bumped.

Jack didn’t say anything, but he looked at Aster and noticed the bruise under his right eye. He kept himself from asking Aster how it happened. Aster didn’t like to talk about his father, and some days Jack didn’t know why he didn’t go grab Pops’ rifle and go scare the son of a bitch witless.

He pretended he couldn’t feel Aster’s eyes on his neck, waiting for an answer. They got in the truck and drove back into town without saying anything at all. Jack went home to his sister.

“You and Aster were gone a long time,” she said, and Jack frowned.

“Well I’m back now.”

“Would you ever leave anywhere without me?” her lips trembled as she said it.

Jack grinned, tousled her hair, much to her distress, and said, “Never.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ***

 

August 4, 1935, Laura died from pneumonia after being bed ridden for polio.

Mama wouldn’t get out of bed. She said, “Why am I being punished?” and “Where’s your father?”

Jack didn’t say anything. He didn’t tell her Pops had left two days ago and hadn’t come back. Jack watched him disappear in the truck until the dust swallowed the truck whole. Jack cooked eggs for his mother, made coffee; sank to the floor, fist to his mouth, and cried until his head hurt.

He wondered where all the magic in the world went. Outside, the the wind picked up again, and the dust came back.

Jack stood outside in the yard while the dogs barked and whined, waiting for it to hit, and remembered Pops saying No place better to live ‘n die than Oklahoma.

He remembered thinking he hated his father.

Three weeks later, his father sent a letter. He’d gotten a job as a migrant worker, a farmhand. Ten dollars was inside. Jack’s mother got out of bed and started scrubbing the dust from the house until the walls ran with mud.

 _Not a day goes past where I don’t think of you. At night, I dream of Laura,_ Will had written.

His mother crumpled the letter, bunched it in her hands until it seemed to disappear. Jack remembered thinking she looked small and gray right then, her dark eyes too wide and her brown hair limp with sweat. She smoothed the skirt to her cotton dress and said, “Now you listen to me, Jackson Overland. There are three things you need to know to survive in this world. One is to always keep your head. Two is never lose faith. Three is don’t go makin’ bets you can’t pay up on. If you wanna make a deal with the Devil, you’ll never get that soul o’ yours back, you hear?” She grabbed the sponge and started scrubbing the floor.

Jack burned the letter and helped his mother clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ***

In October, Jack watched Aster work under the hood of the old Ford truck that still wouldn't run. He was streaked with oil and sweat. Too much sun had bleached Aster’s darker hair and tanned his skin. The muscles in his arm rippled with each tug. Up, down, up, down. Then Aster’s arms stopped moving, and Jack realized Aster was staring at him over the hood.

Aster said, “If I told you I nicked the train tickets that were under my pa’s bed, would you leave with me?”

Jack paused, thought of his mother and the house that never came clean, no matter how long Mama scrubbed. “Where in the hell would we even go?”

Aster shrugged, grinned and pulled out the tickets. “Virginia, I guess. Where would you go?”

Jack thought of Laura, of his mother again, and tried to tell himself he wasn’t a bad son for wanting to leave so badly it hurt. He took a ticket and said, “Anywhere,” but he thought _somewhere magical_. He looked Aster in the eye and pocketed it. He wanted to run, somewhere far, and for once, he had a little hope.

“Meet me here at dawn tomorrow,” Aster whispered, and their shoulders brushed as he passed. Aster smelled like dust and oil and rain. Jack shivered despite the heat. He thought he'd miss Aster. Leaving him and Mama behind hurt worse than he'd anticipated.

But Jack ran anyway.

That night he left his mother the ten dollars from Will’s latest letter, five from underneath the floorboards in his room, and took the remaining fifteen from under the floorboards for himself. He’d been tucking away quarters and half dollars and one dollar bills under his bed for years, and now he had twenty dollars to show for it. Aster used to laugh at him for not using his money at a penny store for candy. Jack would always say, well, someday I’m gonna need it, and I want to have something when I do. Jack left a note on the kitchen table. In it, he told his mother he loved her.

Jack left that night, and from the window by his seat watched the world fade away until it was all a black blur.

He hoped for somewhere magical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ***

 

In Virginia the hills were green. When Jack breathed, it didn’t fill his lungs with dust. In Virginia, there was magic. In Virginia, Jackson found Pitch Black. He didn’t notice the flyers right away. He was too busy shivering in the autumn chill, too busy trying to warm his hands with his breath. Sometimes he stepped over them, flat in the mud and bright like blood.

 

_Midnight Fright!_

 

Once, he came across a poster peeling off the brick of the bakery. He glanced at it, grabbed the edges, and pulled until it tore off completely, thinking of the job he’d been denied, fresh anger keeping him warm.

 

_Midnight Fright!_

 

He kept a piece of it in his pocket, because it was drawn so fine and he liked the colors. The performers, the ringmaster, they all looked like some sort of fairytale. One night, Jack dreamed of the golden eyes on the paper, and woke in the alleyway covered in frost, fingers numb. He started hearing whispers later. Children laughing about it during the day, and women gossiping about the featured sideshows. An old Cherokee woman trying to sell Jack a woven basket (”Doesn’t your mother need a good basket, boy? You should be a good son and buy her one!”) saw the poster fluttering down the alley like a tumble weed. She spat on it.

“The art of demons and witches.” She looked up at him with sharp, black eyes. “Some things are meant to be dreamed of and never seen.” She left the basket at Jack’s feet, muttering about spirits and dark things. Jack shivered and watched her until he’d lost sight of her in the street.

That night the moon was a sliver, and Jack followed a group of boys into the woods.

The circus was coming to town, and Jack would be damned if he missed it. _Midnight Fright!_ He thought, the piece of the poster still in his pocket. The boys he walked with teased and laughed and tried to spook each other. Jack laughed like he hadn’t in weeks, feeling lighter than air, even as the trees closed in.

The moon crested over the trees, a Cheshire grin bright in the sky. The beaten path to the clearing in the forest seemed to come alive, rustling with dead leaves and the footfalls of nervous children. Whispers floating over the gurgling creek promised of fairy floss and clowns, demons and freak shows and one hell of a ride-

 

The people in the stands were screaming. Jack blinked, his memories melting away. Beneath the white and blue lights of the circus Jack could see the people below scurrying, pushing, shoving. Someone was pointing, shouting, sobbing, and as Jack seemed to fly, he looked over his shoulder, towards the shadowed end of the stands, by the curtain. A screech cut through the music and snickers of his act. The musicians were dropping their instruments one by one and jumping over their seats toward the exit. Jack swung in mid-air, caught in the sudden chaos as the crowd milled for the exit like ants in a maze. Jack went cold when he realized one of Pitch’s tigers had escaped.

Suddenly the fear in the circus was thicker than blood, the air so crowded with screams each breath was hard to find.

Little Jamie Bennett was lying limp in a dark puddle on the far end of the stands, and Jack wondered how in the hell he hadn’t heard, hadn’t seen, until it was too late. His blood ran cold, and his stomach clenched so tightly he felt sick. Jamie was just a kid, just a kid who cried for his mother some nights and thought Jack’s stories were better than some of the picture shows. Some nights, sitting on the edge of Jamie’s bed and spinning a tale, Jack would think of Laura.

One of the clowns was cracking a whip, shouting, and the tiger was hissing in a corner. Jack looked for Pitch. A crescendo of wails rose so high Jack winced, but still he didn’t see the ringmaster. Jack wriggled in his harness, yelling, lifting his mask.

“GET ME DOWN! HEY! HEY!” He yelped when he dropped suddenly, groaning in pain when the rope caught tight between his ribs and he dangled six feet off the ground. Cursing, he freed himself and fell. He nearly landed on a woman screeching for her beau. He pushed through the crowd to get to Jamie, was tripped, bowled over.

“Jack!” he thought he heard someone yell, and he paused, going cold all over again.

He knew that voice.

“Jack! JACKSON!”

Jack saw spots when a man racing for the exit struck Jack in the temple with an elbow in his frenzy to flee. Jack groaned, tried to look around, but then he saw Pitch.

The ringmaster was standing in a pool of light in the corner ring, cape flapping by his ankles, cane poised, top hat not the least bit crooked on his head. He stood there, chest rising and falling with each breath he took, and Jack’s heart seemed to skip a beat. Pitch Black closed his eyes against the screams and seemed to drink it in like ambrosia. Jack stared, transfixed, horrified, until Pitch opened his eyes.

Then the ringmaster was running, shouting orders, moving faster than Jack had ever seen before he was lost in the crowd, and Jack shook his head, shoving through to get over to Jamie. Jack kept thinking of the other day, while everyone was busy setting up under the summer sun, and Jamie had said, “If I worked enough and saved all my money, you think I could leave someday? You know, I think it’d be really cool to be a pilot someday…”

Jack had grinned, but didn’t have the heart to tell the kid that once he was in, he was in. Jack had heard rumors of performers trying to leave, trying to skip town while the circus ran. Somehow they all came up dead come morning. Word was leaving cursed you, and no one had the backbone anymore to try and do it.

“Maybe, if I ever leave, you’d come with me?” Jamie had said. Then he’d blushed and mumbled, “Because, if I’d ever had a brother, I think he’d be like you. You’re my best friend, Jack.”

Jack had given Jamie a noogie until the kid squawked, and Jack laughed and said, “If you want a brother, you got one, kid!” But Jack had thought of Aster that night.

_You’re my best friend, Jack._

Jack thought of the voice as he cradled Jamie’s head in his lap and screamed for help, looking around wildly. He tore his cape and tried to staunch the blood gushing from Jamie’s torn arm. The kid wasn’t crying, but he’d paled bone-white. Terror did strange things, Jack realized later. It made people work quicker, sometimes be stronger. It weeded out the weak from the capable. While others screamed and fled, Jack held Jamie, and the clown kept the tiger at bay.

“Am I dying?” Jamie kept asking, moaning in between each word. Jack only held him like a baby and said no, no, of course not.The blood made the air heavy, thick, warm. The fear made him sick, made him numb and cold and strong. It cut through the screams and chaos like glass. Somehow, someway, Jack had made a tourniquet, had tied it tight and and was still pulling on it, still screaming for help. He wouldn’t be able to remember how he did it later, wouldn’t be able to remember the feeling in his hands.

Pitch Black appeared like a God-sent savior in black and velvet, and the chaos ended.

Jack would think of that night, of that fear, for a long, long time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The night’s terror had dulled, and the circus had come to an end for the night. A doctor had been sent for, the tiger had been shot, and the performers slunk away to their cars to drink, sleep, dream, and talk about the tiger in the shadows.

All of them, but one.

In Mr. Black’s car, under the haze of cigar smoke and the voice of Hoagy Carmichael singing _Georgia on My Mind,_ Jack sat hunched on the edge of the ringmaster’s bed. He blew smoke rings and watched Pitch Black in the mirror. Mr. Black was humming, eyes closed, taking off his white gloves, shedding his cape with a shrug and working on his bow tie. Jack’s blood was still singing, muscles still tense. He thought of Jamie, of memories of Aster he had carefully tucked away. He thought of Pitch Black in the center of the crowd, unmoving, drinking in the fear. Maybe it was silly, asinine, to be suspicious of something that seemed so trivial, but Jack had seen the look on the ringmaster’s face more than once. He couldn’t help it. It made him think, made him brood until the world fell away and he coughed on his cigarette when he felt cool hands caress the back of his neck. Mr. Black’s fingers slowly began to knead his shoulders, and Jack sighed, stamping his cigarette out and watching the smoke curl.

“I know you’re fond of the boy, but I assure you, I called the best doctor available.” Those fingers trailed around to Jack’s collarbone, worked their way to his collar and slowly unbuttoned the first of a line of buttons, dipping down to run over his chest.

“Don’t let it consume you, _porumbita_. It is over now, and the boy is in good hands.”

Jack watched in the mirror, watched Pitch’s hands slowly work the button, his lips trailing kisses from Jack’s ear to his collarbone. And Jack wanted the bliss. Wanted it badly, but instead, he spoke.

“Who are you, really?” he whispered as their lips grazed. Pitch Black pulled away, and Hoagy Carmichael was still singing. Pitch looked at Jack, dead in the eye. Jack didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until the ringmaster spoke.

“Do you want to know?” There was something almost sinister in the way he smiled, in the gentle way he spoke.

Jack wasn’t so sure. His heart raced until his head hurt. He swallowed and said, “Tell me.” Without a word, Pitch Black rose and walked to his dresser. From a drawer he pulled out a small piece of marble and tossed it at Jack.

Jack frowned. It was a cameo of a woman, cool in his palm. He turned it over, stared hard at the white eyes and smile.

“My wife,” Mr. Black was saying, and Jack’s eyes snapped up, but before he could spit out an angry word, the ringmaster plowed on. “When I lived in Romania. I had a daughter once as well. A sweet little thing. I would have done anything for my daughter. I was Kozmotis Pitchiner back then. Oh, I was young.” The ringmaster smiled, like an old man remembering a boyhood long gone.

“What happened?” Jack found himself asking. Pitch Black smiled again, shutting the drawer with a _snap._

“They were killed in a fire. It was so great it seemed to rise from Hell itself. It even swallowed the neighboring farms and houses. I will never forget the terror of that night," he paused, and Jack could see the glow in his eyes, eerie and livid.

Mr. Black's lips pursed, a dark look Jack wasn't familiar with shadowing his features, and he lit himself a cigarette, sucking on it and waving away the smoke before he continued. "I had been gone for a few days, trading. I remember, seeing it from afar like a star that kept bursting. I lost everything. My family. My home…I wanted nothing more than to disappear. I went into the woods hoping the wolves would kill me, but they never came, and I never returned. I don’t really remember. I wish I could tell you, but it was so long ago. I do remember, after days walking in circles, I came across a little man with a wagon and a donkey and a monkey that could dance and steal you blind. He was old and mean and toothless, and he told me, for a little time, he’d give me something worth living for again.”

Jack frowned as Pitch Black paused to smoke. He could hear his heart in his skull, and he thought of Laura saying _d'you think God has magic?_  It was a strange tale, something out of a bedtime story. Jack watched the ringmaster unwind, slouch in his seat and loosen his tie.

Jack spoke up. “Did he? Give you something worth living for?”

Pitch Black's fingers froze on his neck, and he grinned. “Oh, _porumbita_ , after what he gave me, I’ll never need to worry about _living_ again.” He laughed and poured himself a glass of whiskey. Jack kept thinking of the look on the ringmaster’s face when the screams were so loud Jack didn’t know how he could think. A thought began to wriggle into his mind. At first, Jack thought it insane, impossible, and it frightened him more than he cared to admit. But it angered him. He thought of Jamie and stood.

“You could have given him another job, you know. Something less dangerous. He didn’t have to feed your tigers and your lion. He was just a kid. But you wanted him to. You liked how much it scared him.”

Pitch downed his shot of whiskey and grimaced. “It was…amusing to see how much it frightened the boy,” he agreed. He set down his glass. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You can’t possibly think I’d be so heartless as to plan this outcome, do you?” He poured himelf another shot, and Jack clenched his fists. He didn't know, but he felt his warness give way to a little relief.

“So what did he give you, anyway? That man?” Jack’s heart was faster than ever, encouraged with fear and growing anger and curiosity, and he watched Pitch with a steely gaze. The ringmaster watched him with golden eyes.

“He gave me, life, Jackson. The best part of it. This man spent his whole life thinking his gift was a curse, and the poor fool was too happy to trade it for death. But I know how to use what he gave me, and I’ve _been_ using it, for over a hundred years. Fear is something the world never lacks. Funny. When you’re young your mother tells you it’s love, but it’s the nightmares that last longer than a lifetime, shape us, turn us into who we are.” Pitch trailed off, swirled the whiskey in his glass, and Jack wasn’t sure whether to back away or take a step forward. It was too fantastical to believe. Too magical. But he thought of how the ringmaster always seemed invigorated after a show or when someone near felt a touch of fear, and somehow, he found himself believing it.

“Midnight Fright is my life, you see. And think of it, Jackson. We could live it together. You and I. We don’t have to be alone. You and I, Jack…” Pitch Black wrapped his arms around Jack’s waist, pulled him close, whispered in his ear, “We could forever in this miserable world.” Jack almost shook his head as he was pulled closer. He almost said no, I don’t want it, I don’t want to know fear like that, but in Pitch’s arms his thoughts seemed to slow, just a little. In Pitch's arms, he could forget why a touch of fear could be a bad thing.

“If you would only let me-” the ringmaster was murmuring against his neck, and Jack sighed in his lap. Jack’s mouth found Pitch Black’s, but then someone was knocking on the door. Mr. Black growled in frustration and Jack pulled away, wondering if he was relieved or annoyed.

“What is it?” the ringmaster snapped as he threw open the door. The man on the other side quailed at the burning look from the ringmaster, but he cleared his throat.

“There’s a boy out back, sir-”

Pitch scoffed. “I don’t have the time nor the patience to deal with recruits. Tell him to come back tomorrow.” He made to close the door, but his security guard was persistant. Jack watched curiously from his spot on the bed.

“He doesn’t want work. He says he knows one of the performers, just wants to see him.”

“And who might this performer be?” Pitch Black wondered, still short-tempered. Jack thought of the voice in the circus and felt his blood freeze when the security guard gestured to him.

“It’s Jack. The kid wants to see Jack Frost.”

There was a silence, and Jack wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or slink away. Pitch Black had turned to stare at him, as if trying to uncover a secret that might’ve been scrawled on Jack’s skin all this time. He nodded once, but his neck was too sitff, and Jack knew he was annoyed.

“I believe you are wanted, Jackson,” he said, stepping to the side. Jack slid past, but he felt the ringmaster’s cool touch on his wrist, a promise that their conversation wasn’t over. A promise that magic was waiting for him in that room. He took a breath and stepped away.

Jack walked in silence, thoughts whirring, and he wondered if he was getting another stomach ache. He walked out into the cool night, out onto the fair grounds where the circus was stationed, out passed the gate and the trees. The security guard stopped after a few yards and pointed, using his lantern and squinting.

“Over there, under the tree, see? Says he’s your friend.”

Jack’s throat ran dry as he took the lantern and made out a silhouette as he walked closer. Finally, the lantern’s weak light spilled onto the waiting figure, and Jack’s breath caught as the young man turned to face him.

“Thought I’d never see you again,” Aster said, “And you’ve been here all this time.” Aster looked older, leaner, more gristle than laughs. His eyes were narrowed shrewdly, as if he couldn’t decide whether he was happy or furious. His hair had grown out a little, sticking out from underneath his cap.

“Hey, Aster,” Jack managed to say, and the night felt a little colder.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I've been away. I'm back now and hoping to add more chapters to as many fics as I can in the next few days! Hope you enjoyed this latest chapter. One more to go!


	3. Old Wounds Only Fester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Only got room in this world for one kind of you. So which one's it gonna be?"
> 
> Songs mentioned:
> 
> "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (1933) by Gertrude Niesen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPQxSUHtJww

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter is already written. It's being edited and gone over again before it's posted. Thanks for reading. Hope this is satisfactory, OP. Sorry it took. Well. Forever. I got really stuck and admittedly didn't touch it for a long time.
> 
> Last minute warnings: Again, if you didn't read the tags thoroughly, flashbacks are dub-con, so trigger warning just in case. Also, Pitch Black is freaky as hell.
> 
> That's all.
> 
> edit 11/4: Still making little changes and corrections. I posted this at 2 a.m. and am still finding mistakes or whole missing pockets of writing that I meant to add in and didn't. Also changing the "one-sided" warning with Jack/Bunny because technically, it's a little more than one-sided. Rather, it's just a road not taken.

Love was a terrible thing.

 

It ate at Aster like a cancer, made him sick and weak and paranoid.The brush of a shoulder, a gaze lasting just a second long enough to linger even as he slept, fingers brushing, just a little, when they walked too close.

 

Jackson Overland was going to be the death of E. Aster Mund.

 

Not that he minded much.

 

He remembered it like yesterday, a dream still fresh on his brain after a good night’s sleep; back before any troubles and back when Pa had Ma and didn’t drink so damn much.Pa liked to laugh then. He liked to take Aster out back and show him how to aim and how to shoot, even though Ma hated it and would watch with a white face from between a crack in the curtains. Back when Ma hung back in the shadows with a timid smile and pretended they were all a family.

 

Aster never forgot the first time he’d shot his father’s rifle, would never forget the first time he hit a bottle; that feeling of satisfaction, squinting against the glare of the midmorning sun, the glass twinkling in the air. His father had whooped, saying, “Atta boy! That’s my son, right there!”

 

And all was right with the world.

 

Back then, Aster hadn’t needed Jack. Hadn’t known him. Hadn’t cared much. And maybe he never would have, if it hadn’t been for Pa.

 

Aster was ten years old the day he first spoke to the neighbor’s boy, Jackson Overland.

 

He was running wild through the streets, pumping his legs and arms so fast the patchwork town melted into a blur. He ran until the sting on his face from Pa’s hand didn’t feel so goddamned awful.  He ran, like the little feral boy so many of those busty housewives claimed he was, (“poor thing. Doesn’t have a mother figure you know. Word is Mrs. Mund hightailed it with a city banker, left her boy behind. But shoot, he’s a right terror, that Aster. Don’t know discipline and don’t know respect. Wild, like some kind of animal. And that swearin’! I swear I’ll scrub his mouth out myself!”) but he didn’t care enough to slow down or prove them wrong for once.

 

There was always another time for a last laugh.

 

He ran past Mrs. Shields, the grocer’s wife, and knocked her over as he sprinted, ignoring her angry cries. When he looked back over his shoulder, as if Pa would round the corner, he ran into a barrel of whiskey  in front of the saloon. The barrel fell over with a thump and spilled amber like blood. The bar owner came stumbling out cussing up a storm, waving a fist and shouting “hooligan!”. But still Aster ran.

 

He ran so fast and so hard he wondered if it was possible to run into the sky and never look back. He’d never have to see Pa get so angry from being sad again or wake up thinking how much he hated Ma for leaving, or how much he missed her and still cried for her at night. And that was when he collided with the farmer’s boy.

 

Jackson.

 

They knocked heads so hard Aster almost forgot about his black eye and split lip. He held his head and spat so many curses, it was a wonder no one came by to hit him over the head with a bar of soap.

 

“Shit! Aw hell! You idiot! You stupid-! The fuck’s wrong with you! Why don’t you watch where you’re goin’!” He kept yowling, and he was crying like a baby and didn’t even know it. He kept his eyes closed. Then someone was taking his hand, yanking him upright and asking “you alright?”. The kid pretended he couldn’t see the tears on Aster’s cheeks, not that Aster was bothering to look at him in the face, anyway.

 

Aster sniffed loudly, ripped his hand away from the other boy’s palm to wipe his face and glower. He turned away from the kid, about to tell him to stop holding his hand like some sort of fairy. He could stand up by himself, thanks, when he swiped at his cheeks and looked at the boy again.

 

The world forced itself back into place, and suddenly there was only Jackson Overland, looking at Aster like he was somebody who actually mattered. He didn’t look the least bit upset, even though he was wincing in pain and Aster had called him a fucking idiot.

 

Jackson had the sort of face, even at ten years old, that made Aster pause and really try to look at him for a second. He was as tall as Aster, with a mess of brown hair and dark eyes and lighter skin. And in Jackson’s gentle face, Aster saw the boy he wished he could be.

 

He was almost jealous.

 

Jackson’s hands fluttered, like he couldn’t decide whether to bolt, or whether or not to touch Aster on the shoulder to steady him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just-whoa, your face! Are you alright? I didn’t do that, did I?”

 

Aster glowered, heat snaking up his neck as he spat on the ground. “I’m fine.”

 

“Sure? You’re bleeding. Here.” Jackson was digging through his pockets for a handkerchief, pausing to rub at his head, saying stupid stuff like “gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you” and “hey, don’t I know you?”  He finally fished out the handkerchief. “Ha! There it is. Here, take it.” Jackson waved it like a flag.

 

Aster snatched it, blinking away angry tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He wiped his nose on his arm again, using the movement to look away. “I said I’m fine.”

 

Then he was running again and he didn’t look back, didn’t bother to stop and give Jackson his handkerchief. But the sting in his lip didn’t feel as bad, even when the house loomed into view and Aster could almost hear it say shit like _ungrateful little bastard, after everything I do for you!_ and _maybe if you’d been a better boy, your mama wouldn’ta left ya here with me. Now I’m all you got_. That night, when Pa snored so loud the house seemed to quiver in the heat, Aster held the handkerchief tight in a fist, and he didn’t feel so angry.

 

The second time Aster saw Jackson Overland, it was Halloween night in Keyes just a few weeks later, and the Henson boys from down the lane were trying to catch a glimpse of a witch. The Henson twins were a right pair of devils Pa liked to say, but hell, at the time Aster didn’t have better friends.

 

As night crept up the road, Aster could hear the echoes of their hoots and hollers, could see the twins’ silhouettes dashing up to the house as he sat at the table, watching Pa clean out his rifle. He couldn’t stop bouncing his knee as he sat, waited, watched, praying to God they would come knock on the door.

 

Pa slammed the rifle down hard when the table shook, staring at Aster from behind the peppered hair that hung in his lined face. “Knock it off,” he growled, and Aster flinched, looked away, shoulders sagging when the Hensons shot past the house.

 

But then a minute later someone rapped at the door, and Pa cursed. He dismissed Aster with a flip of his hand. “Aw, hell. Get outta here, go ‘n play. But I fuckin’ swear boy,” he jabbed a finger, his eyes cutting to slits, “you cause any grief tonight and you’re gonna feel my belt on your behind come mornin’. Don’t want no trouble tonight, got enough rascals thinkin’ tonight’s the night to fuck with people.” WIth that, Pa leaned back in his chair, sending a glob of tobacco-stained spit flying at the spittoon by the table.

 

Aster ran out the door and didn’t look back.

 

The twins were waiting up the road, kicking up dirt and cackling, and that was when Aster noticed they weren’t alone. The milkman’s boy, Johnny Roberts, was wringing his hands, pulling a face that made him look nauseous. Another boy was waiting, watching Aster approach with a grin on his face and a laugh on his lips, and Aster’s jaw worked when he saw who it was.

 

FIgured it was that Overland kid. He felt a fluttering in his gut, mouth set in a  hard line.

 

He still hadn’t given Jack the handkerchief back, and Aster felt himself get too warm when he realized it was still tied to a post on his headboard, like some sort of dreamcatcher. He wondered if Overland had told the twins, whispered to them about Aster crying in the street like a baby. He looked away when Jack nodded and waved.

 

“Hey, Aster! Never gonna guess what we’re gonna do tonight,” Charlie Henson crowed, and Billy Henson clapped Jackson on the back, who fished out a flask. Aster glared at him, thought of Pa and his drinking and felt himself get angry, but then Charlie was laughing and Johnny looked sick again.

 

“He nicked it from the church!” Charlie burst out, and obviously this was incredibly funny, because he was holding his ribs he was laughing so hard. Jackson looked proud of himself.

 

Aster blinked stupidly. “What?”

 

“It’s holy water, dumbass! What’d you think it was?” Billy said, and Johnny giggled nervously.

 

“I can’t believe Father Alloroy didn’t see you!”

 

Jack puffed out his chest, grinned at Aster like he was some kind of comic book hero. “It wasn’t so hard. Alls I had to do was get him started on Jesus. He starts walking everywhere when he talks, and soon as his back turned, bam!” He held up the whiskey flask.

 

Aster was beginning to feel that old thrill he got whenever he knew he was about to do something that Pa would punish him for later, but he was going to do it anyway. “What are we doing tonight?” he whispered, and the boys shared glances before the Hensons pointed up the road. There weren’t any more houses for a couple of miles, but Aster knew there was an old cabin by a lake up the way, where the crazy old widow Prockett lived.

 

Rumor was old Mrs. Prockett wasn’t just as ugly as she was older than dirt, but she had a broom in her closet that twitched on its own when no one else was looking. Johnny Roberts’ dad was the milkman, and bless his honest hard-working heart, his daddy never lied. One time, Mr. Roberts had had to bring the milk inside because poor Mrs. Prockett had such a bad limp she couldn’t walk right, but by the next morning, she was right as rain, even got the milk by herself.  If that wasn’t fishy, Johnny had said, he didn’t know what was. The morning before that, Johnny said she’d been cooking up something mean on her stove, the same day the neighbor’s dog went missing. And by golly, Johnny swore to God his daddy said Mrs. Prockett could be heard talking to herself every morning when he delivered the milk, like there was someone else in her house.

 

“And my daddy ain’t no liar!” Johnny said again. The boys only laughed, and in the growing pool of shadow they were standing in the oil lamp the Henson twins had brought burned a little brighter, lighting their faces with flickering masks.

 

“And who do you think she’s talking to when she thinks no one else’s listenin’?” Johnny pressed. No one said anything, but Aster felt Jack’s eyes on his neck. He sneered back. He wasn’t scared! Jack smiled wider.

 

Prockett was talking to Devil, of course, Johnny was saying.

 

It was witchcraft!

 

The moon was as fat and copper as a penny that night. The Henson twins bared crooked smiles that looked mean in the lamplight, and in the amber glow, Jackson Overland had a grin more mischievous than the Prince of Thieves. It was Halloween night, and the boys were about to catch themselves a witch.

 

They crept up the road, spooking each other. Jack flicked them all with the holy water he’d nicked, making them laugh louder than they should have.

 

Aster didn’t even think about Pa.

 

Before long the boys were crouched beneath Prockett’s window, arguing in heated whispers over what they should do now. A little light was spilling from Prockett’s kitchen, and they could hear her shuffling around inside, calling for her cat. It was getting pretty dark, and Aster just wanted to do it already because if he waited any longer, Pa was going to be pissed. He fidgeted as the twins argued.

 

“Jack got the holy water, he should do it!” Billy said, and his twin shoved at Jack, egging him on.

 

“Yeah,” whispered Charlie, “You got the holy water, Jack. This might as well have been your idea. You do it. See if she’s really a witch. See if she melts when you pour that water on her.”

 

Jack’s eyes went wide, and Aster wondered if he was scared. Jack opened his mouth to say something, but Aster beat him to it. He scoffed. “What? You two a couple of pansies now? Can’t even carry out your own pranks?”

 

“Shut up-” Charlie started to say, but Billy silenced him with a shove and snatched the flask from Jack with a glare. Jack was looking at him again, that odd kind of look that made his brow wrinkle up like he was doing a puzzle, but Aster pretended not to notice or care.

 

What happened next gave Aster a friend he thought he’d have for life.

 

Billy and Charlie walked up to the front door and knocked three times. Jack was trying to say something, but Aster hushed him, and Johnny Roberts was moaning like he was already getting an ass-whooping just for being there.

 

The door opened, and the Henson twins shrieked, throwing the holy water in Prockett’s face and hightailing it so fast their behinds probably couldn’t keep up.

 

Then Aster saw why they screamed as Prockett spluttered and all hell broke loose.

 

“GOD DAMN HOOLIGANS! GET BACK HERE! I’LL GIVE YOU AN ASS WHOOPIN’ YOUR MAMAS WERE TOO AFRAID TO GIVE YA!” Prockett yelled, and she cocked her rifle and fired into the sky.

 

“HOLY FUCKING JESUS!” Johnny screamed. He pissed his pants and wheezed out more prayers than his mama probably never thought he'd actually say. Aster scrambled away for the road, and he could see Jack running beside him, just a blur as Prockett kept screaming.

 

“I’LL CALL THE SHERIFF! SEND YOUR ASSES RIGHT TO JAIL FOR TRESPASSIN’! YOU JUST WAIT! OH I’M GONNA COME CATCH YOU AND SHOW YOUR PARENTS WHAT ROTTEN BOYS YOU ARE!” Another shot to the moon and it was so loud Aster stumbled and fell, yelping when he went down hard. He skidded, feeling the skin slide off his elbow. He went sailing right into a pocket of cold mud. He saw Jack fly past and didn’t blame him, except that Prockett was still shooting into the sky and yelling like a mad woman, hobbling down the road, and now Aster was beginning to realize that maybe he’d never really had any friends at all.

 

Then Jackson stopped running and turned around, which Aster thought was just plain stupid.

 

“Get up, get up! C’mon!” Jack yanked so fast and hard Aster slipped before he ran.

 

“Shit, you tryin’ to tear my arm off?!” he gasped. Jack just laughed, howling with another shot like they were in an episode of the Lone Ranger. Aster didn’t think about the fact that he was so grateful he could have cried.

"You alright?" Jack wheezed out. He was smiling. It was a smile that made Aster think Pa was a liar. They ran until their breath seared their lungs, until they couldn't hear Prockett shouting or shooting. Out of breath and fighting off stitches, Aster trudged after Jack. They veered off the road, collapsing in the grass. 

 

Aster looked up at the night sky and tried to think, but then Jackson started laughing. It was breathy and choppy, a kind of laugh someone had when they'd just gotten away with something bad and they couldn't believe it had happened. Somehow, it was the funniest thing in the world right then.

 

“Did-did you see how scared shitless they were! Ha-haha!” Jackson covered his face with his hands and shook.

 

Aster smiled, coughing. He couldn’t help it, even though his heart felt like it was going to explode and his throat hurt. “Johnny even pissed himself,” he gasped out, and laughed harder. He looked down at his muddy clothes and groaned.

 

“Aw, shit,” he cursed. What was Pa gonna say if he came home looking like this? He shivered, but he still laughed. He would think about it later.

 

“Your dad gonna be mad if you go home all muddy like that?” Jack asked suddenly. Aster stopped laughing, and he realized how much his elbow stung. For one sickening moment, he thought Jackson must have known. Must have known how much of a mean, stupid drunk his Pa was, and he was embarrassed, but then Jack prattled on.

 

“My mama always throws a fit over somethin’ like that, see-” and he went on and on and stood up. Aster followed, listening to Jack talk like what he had to say was as good as radio, until he realized they were at the lake.

 

“Wait-”

 

“C’mon!” Jack grinned impishly, and he looked pale under the moon. “Better’n being all muddy! Your dad can’t be any angrier if you’re wet instead of muddy right?  Bet you a dollar I can last longer than you can!” He stripped off his shirt, wriggling out of his pants until he stood naked in the dark, then went sprinting for the lake. He shouted when he jumped in, screaming about how cold it was.

 

Aster stared and wondered if Jack was crazy.

 

“If I freeze my balls off because you don’t want to skinny dip, I win.”

 

“Like you really have a dollar to bet anyway?” Aster called back, but he was already taking off his shoes.He grinned and went running for the lake, naked and shivering by the time his toes hit the bank. He forgot about the scrape on his elbow. Forgot about how mad Pa was going to be (and he had been pissed that night). Forgot about how scared he’d been when he’d seen Prockett’s rifle and how mad he’d been when his friends had left him behind.

 

And shit, jumping into that lake had been like getting hit with a bucket of ice, but they’d laughed like it was second most funniest thing in the world. They’d lasted about a minute.

 

Jack had won that night, but there had been many more nights. Nights of mischief and laughter and lost dollars (and a couple of times, they’d bet with Coca-Colas). Nights Aster was never going to get back.  Days where when Pa got so bad and Aster wanted to scream, but then Jack would appear at the door like some sort of hero he could lean for just a little longer, and Jack always knew what to say, or when to not say anything at all. Moments where Aster truly believed there wasn’t a person in the world like Jackson Overland, and maybe there still wasn’t.

 

He almost laughed at himself as he remembered how that October morning, six years later, he’d pulled the train ticket out from under his pillow, threw a pillowcase of clothes over his shoulder, and crept out into the gray dawn. He’d paused by the door, stepping lightly over Pa, sprawled out on the kitchen floor, snoring in that rumbling monster way of his. Aster felt his fingers tighten over the doorknob, an anger licking his insides.

 

He closed the door softly, like a baby was asleep on the other side.

 

He’d waited like a damn fool for Jack at that station. Smoked too many cigarettes on that bench, huddled in his coat, shooting glares at the conductors who kept waiting for him to board when a train lumbered in. He almost threw a fist into the mouth of the officer who told him to stop loitering and get out, or get on a train.

 

He hoisted his pillowcase on his shoulders and booked it when two officers rounded the corner next time.

 

He ran, all that way back up the road he hated so much, past the house he’d been born in, and ran another mile to the Overland house. His throat burned, bile was creeping up his throat he was running so hard. He’d almost fallen to his knees in the yard, but he staggered to the door, refusing to believe he’d been abandoned by the person he trusted the most.

 

The person he loved the most.

 

Aster knocked on the door, and kept knocking, until Betty Overland answered the door. She looked grayer than a ghost and puffy-eyed. Aster’s heart twisted until it felt like there was nothing left but a hole, and he knew before she even opened her mouth.

 

“Please tell me he’s with you,” she whispered, and Aster looked away, let his pillowcase fall to the ground. He cursed, looking back at the road.

 

“Naw,” he said, lifting his cap and running shaking fingers through his hair. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that!”  He threw his hat and yelled, didn’t realize he was crying until Mrs. Overland closed the front door as softly as he had with Pa.

 

He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at the road, at his pillowcase, at the hat underneath his shoe. In the end, he bent down to pick it all up like an old man bending for his cane, and when he knocked on the door to check on Mrs. Overland, she didn’t answer.

 

So he left.

 

Later, he’d hear about Mrs. Overland selling the house, going away to someplace quiet. She never would come back to Keyes.

 

He could have gone on. Could have gone to the train station and actually boarded a train, but instead, Aster went home, not trusting himself to think. He found Pa sitting in the rocking chair in the living room, rifle in his lap, eyes bloodshot and mean, still in the same clothes he’d been in since the day before yesterday.

 

Pa laughed. “Well, well, well. Big wide world too mean for ya already? Hmm? Or are you just  that stupid? Comin’ back here after you stole from your own daddy. Well? You know if I wasn’t your Pa, I could shoot someone for bein’ a thief. Speak up, boy, I’m fucking talking to ya!” He took his rifle and banged the handle on the floor loudly.

 

Aster didn’t flinch. He took out his ticket, held it out for Pa to see. Pa grunted, but he didn’t take it. “Where’s my other one? Huh?” He poked Aster’s legs with the rifle handle.

 

Aster swallowed, not meeting his eyes. “Don’t have it,” he said hoarsely, and Pa’s eyes widened with an understanding Aster hated.

 

“Oh hoho.  I get it now. I ain’t as dumb as you take me for, boy,” he leaned back in his chair, licking his teeth in thought. “You thought you was gonna run away with that little faggot didn’t ya? Go live somewhere nice together like some happy couple. Ha! Thought you’d take my tickets that I worked my ass off to get. Something I worked for, ya hear? Serves you right. Just goes to prove, son, you can’t trust people. Oh naw. No one but your old man. You show ‘em a little affection and lookit what they do. Steal ya blind and leave you at home like some poor ole sucker. Didn’t your mama teach you that?” He paused to take a drink, and Aster stood rigid and cold in the living room, the hole in his chest getting bigger.

 

“You don’t leave family. Who do you got, now that lover boy’s flown the coop? Hmm? Who”?

 

Aster didn’t look up. “You, Pa.”

 

Pa grunted. “Got no one but me, your family. Should know damn well by now. Ain’t nobody gonna love you.  Serves you right. Serves you fucking right for being such a damn fool. Now put your shit and that ticket away. You’re lucky I’m not treatin’ you like some thief. C’mon. Truck still won’t start, and you got better hands for it.” Pa belched and reached for his flask of whiskey, like suddenly it was all over and there was nothing left but the life Aster didn’t want.

 

And the tiniest part of Aster had wondered, not for the first time, if Pa was right.

 

Something broke then, and for the longest time, Aster was never sure what it was, but it snapped clean in two. He blinked against the sting in his eyes, fought against the rage ready to burst out of skin,  and told himself he wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to think about Jackson until he’d worked himself to the bone and Pa was so fucking drunk he’d never remember Aster crying.

 

“Well? You gonna get movin’? Hey! Aster, I’m talking to you. You mute now? You a dumbass? Hey!” Pa stood up and reached out, cuffing Aster over the ear, and Aster did something he’d never forget.

 

He shoved Pa. Pushed him away good and hard until the old drunk fell. He yowled as he tipped over, taking the rifle with him. It went off when it smacked against the floor, blasting a hole in the ceiling. Pa cursed Aster to hell, got up and swung the butt of his rifle at his son, who held up his arms and ripped it away from his father’s thick fingers.

 

“I ain’t a dumbass!” Aster held the rifle tight in his hands, watched his Pa’s face as he threw it out the window.

 

“You got it backwards, Pa,” he said as his father eyed him with bulging eyes, “Ain’t nobody ever gonna love you.”  He took his pillowcase and kept the train ticket, heading for the door as Pa howled.

 

“Come back here! You come back right now, Aster! I swear to fucking God, you leave you ain’t ever comin’ back! You come back and I’ll treat you like a real thief! ASTER!”

 

Aster never did look back, even when he boarded a train to Virginia that night. The officer there eyed him warily as he hopped on, but Aster waved his ticket like an insolent little boy with a BB rifle, and they didn’t try to chase him away. He watched Keyes fade away and thought of Jackson Overland.

 

And he swore to God, he’d find Jack even if it killed him. Some days, it was all that kept him going.

 

Ain’t nobody gonna love you, he could hear Pa saying when he worked, and it always made him work harder, faster.  Sometimes he was a farm hand. Other times, he was working at a warehouse.But work was hard to come by, and the Depression had sucked too many a man dry. When he went looking for work, Aster could feel the eyes of the unemployed and homeless on his back, bright like jackals, hungry and angry and saying you’re not any better than the rest of us. He got laughed at once. At night, he searched for Jack. Asked and dug around until finding Jack was all he dreamed about, all that kept him moving when he wanted to lie down and sleep. But one day, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and hitchhiked a ride out of Virginia, and he didn’t look back.

 

He had a gut feeling, and those were never wrong.

 

So when, all those months later in Normal, Illinois, Aster ripped off a red poster boasting the freakiest side shows on this side of the USA, he wondered if he was walking around dreaming. He opened his eyes, closed them, squinted so hard black edged in on his vision.  It was a finely drawn poster. Letters as bright as gold, with a handsome ringmaster in the center that looked as foreboding as Count Dracula in a cape and top hat and mysterious smile. And all around him, drawn as colorfully as oil paintings on fans, were the performers. Beautiful ones in sequins, strong ones with a serious gaze, scary ones with mocking grins,  and at the side of the Ringmaster, looking out at the world with a playful grin Aster could have remembered even when he was old and gray, was the face of Jackson Overland.

 

SEE YOUR DARKEST NIGHTMARES TURNED TO GLEE! A BRAND NEW CHILLING ACT, GUARANTEED TO FREEZE YOU TO YOUR SEAT IN FEAR! 25 CENTS. THIS WEEK ONLY!

 

PITCH BLACK’S MIDNIGHT FRIGHT!

 

Very carefully, Aster folded the poster until he could fit it in his pocket. He wandered over to the fair grounds, even though the sun was still out, and waited. He watched as the circus folk milled around outside and put the finishing touches on the tents. Watched it all unfurl from a distance like a party out of a box, eerily calm.

 

Midnight Fright!

 

The sun set, and once night hit, people began to trickle in, and Aster blended in with them until he could have been anyone, just another face in a crowd hoping for a little scare. He bought his ticket, took his seat, and listened to the hum of voices.

 

Midnight Fright!

 

The ringmaster had tricks he’d never seen, and a smile that promised a night no one would ever forget. He moved with grace, a type of calculating control that made the ring look colder. There were beautiful, gaunt girls in fishnet stockings who sang in trilling voices, and a man tattooed in scales who blew fire off his tongue. Hobgoblins with pitchforks and a headless horsemen, a cannibal queen and a harpy with wings.

 

Midnight Fright!

 

And then, Aster saw Jack, poised high on a tightrope, the spotlight hitting him just right so he seemed to glow. Aster’s heartbeat never changed, not once, until he noticed the boy on the tightrope. Then his heart leaped into his throat and slid down to his knees. His throat ran dry and he didn’t know if he was angry, sad, elated, or all three. He wasn’t surprised at how well Jack moved. He’d always been that kid the others envied because he was athletic, because he could do a backflip that if anyone else tried to do, they’d break their necks.

 

He watched Jack  dive from the rope like a swan, watched the ringmaster catch him, and as everyone around him laughed, time seemed to slow. As Aster sat in his seat wondering what he was going to do now he’d actually found Jackson, he hadn’t realized he’d been gripping the sides of his seat so hard until his palms began to ache.

 

But when the ringmaster twirled back around, only bats flew out of his cape, and Aster blinked.

 

There never had been a better escape artist than the one and only Jackson Overland.

* * *

 

Pitch Black watched through a crack in the curtains as the night swallowed Jack whole. He watched until the bobbing light from the security guard’s oil lamp could have been a firefly lost in the grass. Suddenly the boy was gone, and it unnerved him. Made him want to reach out to the black and pull Jack back.

 

Mr. Black let the curtain slip from his fingers, let it close and looked away. He sat in a chair by the dresser, something almost poetic about the way his brow furrowed, the way he brooded there and smoked like an artist about to unleash something worth looking at.

 

But anyone waiting for something extraordinary would be left disappointed, as Pitch Black guarded the extraordinary like a dragon swallowing gold.

 

He puffed on his cigar, beginning to loosen his tie with trembling fingers as he hummed. Carefully, he reached behind him, reaching for the coat hanging on his chair, revealing a silver handgun from the inner pocket. He tucked it away in a drawer, signing all the while, smiling when he thought of the tiger’s eyes. It had hissed and curled itself into a corner like a kitten before he shot it.

 

His blood was still singing from the show, from the tiger, and those screams had filled him to the brim. He still felt light,  like he’d smoked too much opium. He  started to sing along to the music drifting through the smoke.

 

“ _They asked me how I knew, my true love was true."_  

 

He smiled a little, shrugging out of his dress shirt until he stood in a white undershirt spotted with an odd stain here and there. His cigar burned orange with another inhale.

 

“ _I of course replied, something deep inside cannot be denied_ ,” he echoed, a mocking grin on his lips. His head turned to stare at his reflection in the mirror.

 

For a moment, the smoke seemed to warp his reflection, twist his face until he might have been peering through a looking glass, and it wasn’t him on the other side, but a fearsome doppleganger. The kind of soul-sucking spirit his mother use to tell him about to scare him when he was a boy.

 

If his mother could see him now, she’d drop to her knees and pray for salvation. He grimaced. Some years, Pitch Black could almost forget who he was, and those were always the best years.

 

Without the boy to calm the hum in his blood, without Jack, he was left alone with these whimsical thoughts, left alone to hunger and brood. He thought of Jack’s face, with that angular jaw and thin face and dark eyes that knew too much even when they didn’t want to see.

 

It made his body stir, shudder, anticipate the boy’s return, and he stretched languidly on the bed.

 

 _You and I, Jack....we could live forever in this miserable world_. And he’d meant it. Every word.

 

When you lived a life with a dark purpose, beauty was something you held onto for dear life and hoped it didn’t rot away. The feel of Jackson underneath him, warm, and just a little afraid or sparking with a touch of anger, was so achingly beautiful he wanted to weep. It didn’t matter that the boy had had to be coaxed. Pitch Black had seen the need in his eyes that first night months ago when the ragtag kid entered his car and demanded a job.

 

He’d tasted the boy’s fear, so delicious on his tongue. He could see the inner workings of the human heart, where black things hid and intertwined like the cogs in a clock. Jack’s heart was riddled with ripe, black spots of fear and pain, and Pitch Black had never seen such an open heart before. It awakened a hunger within him, a part of him too long starved and denied. Made him realize how alone he’d been for so, so many years. And suddenly the boy, Jack, couldn’t be turned away. Suddenly Pitch Black desired more of him. And he’d smiled, so slow, as Jack had signed his name.

 

The horrible truth was a man like Pitch Black made the devil grin, and Jack unwittingly signed over his fate.

 

Atta boy, Pitch had said, and Jack had tried to look pleased with himself, like he’d made a good decision for once. All the while Pitch noticed how the boy didn’t meet his eye when Pitch Black poured him wine for being “one of us now” and the way Jack tried not to see how his gaze lingered a second too long as he said silkily, bottoms up.  Pitch had smiled.

 

Like a predator.

 

And he was. A real monster, and the thought only made him grin like the bastard he was.

 

It didn’t matter that after that first night, the boy had fisted his pillow and quietly squeezed out a couple tears like he was in pain, because it was all so worth it to feel alive again, to know he wouldn’t be alone much longer, that maybe one day, he’d even get to die. Jackson had been unsure, Pitch knew, but wanting nonetheless. He’d just needed a little coaxing. Just a little coaxing…

 

Jackson had been so delightfully frightened when Pitch traced a finger along his chest that first night all those nights ago. “I’m not a faggot,” Jack had denied in a voice that sounded too thin, and Pitch Black had only laughed, laughed until his eyes began to glow and the fear began to work its magic. Laughed when Jackson’s curses became moans, and desperate, clumsy touches.

 

Jackson was lost to its power. Just like everyone else.

 

So Pitch Black opened the gate to the boy’s desires with a tap of his finger and a kiss on the mouth, and what he saw delighted him, fed him. Jack would come to appreciate it, to desire it. You’re beautiful, he’d told Jackson that night on the too-small bunk, hidden away in the dark corner of the car. So beautiful.You’re amazing. Amazing. Amazing, he’d gasped out as the black world he knew sparked with pleasure from the tight heat of the body beneath him. So slight, so beautiful, ready for adventure, like a lost bird on its first flight from the nest. He only had to catch it.

 

Beauty was a rare thing in a world full of misfortunes.

 

And Pitch Black had had his share of misfortunes, enough to fill a few graves. Oh, what a drab, gray world it was, he thought. At least his corner had a little color to it. For now. He looked back to the window, as if he would be able to somehow see Jack returning, and his bare foot hit something cool on the sheets as he relaxed again on the bed. He noticed the marble cameo of his dead wife still on the bed, and he sat up, reaching for it. He rolled it between his fingers. It was cold. Foreign. He hadn’t looked at it in years.

 

It could have been eons ago, that life.

 

A time when his name was Kozmotis. A time when he’d never been more honest for a man riddled with lies. A time when he had a daughter he loved who hung on his arm and pleaded for bedtime stories. A time when he tried to look into the face of the wife his family had chosen for him, and imagine that he wanted her in the way he was supposed to. She’d known. Known about his desires. But she had been a good wife, and never said a word.

 

He never did try to love her, and there were moments he thought he regretted it.

 

The fire ate her alive, turned his daughter and her stories to ash, and then there was nothing. Nothing but a blackened stump and the smell of charred wood that stung his throat. He kept waiting by it long after the embers stopped glowing, as if his daughter’s voice would rise out of the smoke.

 

“Papa. Don’t be too long. What if one day you leave, and when you come back, I’m older and different?”

 

 _What if one day I left,_ he thought, _and you were gone when I returned?_ He’d been too stunned to shout in anguish. Too numb. He’d wandered into the woods that night, not knowing where he was going, deaf to the calls of his neighbors. He could hear the wolves howl to the moon, and he walked, entranced, towards their song.

 

Maybe he’d wanted to die. He wasn’t sure anymore, but when the wolves had seen him through the frost they’d only snarled. Bared their teeth, eyes flashing in the dark before spiriting away and leaving him alone with nothing but the carcass of a deer.

 

When the little man had found him the next day, nearly frozen to death by the base of a tree, Kozmotis Pitchiner had thought he was dreaming. Something was coming through the trees. It was a wagon, pulled by a mangy donkey. A little man, covered in an patched cloak was riding it, a monkey riding on his shoulder.

 

A goddamned monkey. If he could have laughed, he would have.

 

“Ah,” Kozmotis heard the little man say when he came closer, “a customer? Or a dead man?” He’d poked Kozmotis with a stick and clucked his tongue.

 

“Dead man,” the man said to his donkey, and it blinked dolefully at him. “What use are frozen bones to me? He’s not even afraid.”  Kozmotis had grimaced when the stick prodded his cheek.

 

“A rare thing,” the man murmured, “to truly not be afraid of death.” Maybe it was death waiting patiently for him, but Kozmotis looked at the man’s face, and swore his eyes shone like the wolves’ at night. Even so, he was not afraid.

 

Kozmotis had looked at this man, with his mop of gray hair, cutting eyes, and toothless grin. He was fuzzy-headed and so cold he almost felt warm. For a moment he wondered if he’d already died. He imagined his daughter was waiting for him.

 

 _Tell me a story, Papa,_ she’d say, and he would tell her about this silly man in his cloak, with his jittering monkey and sad, sad donkey. After a while, the wanderer and his monkey began to go through his pockets, and Kozmotis waved both of them away. The monkey scampered back up the wanderer’s arm with a hiss.

 

“At least let me die first,” he had croaked, and the man tutted.

 

“Not dead yet, eh? Hmm. if you stay awake, I’ll give you a show for your coins. A fair trade, eh? The best show you’ve ever seen.” He fanned some cards in Kozmotis’ face, like magic.

 

Kozmotis had glared, head lolling.. “...Nothing left I want...to see. Just...let me be. Rob me when I’m dead.”

 

The wanderer regarded him for a time as Kozmotis waited to die. Finally, seeming to make up his mind, the wanderer said, “Are you truly not afraid?”

 

“No,” Kozmotis heard himself answer in a wisp of a voice.

 

“Curious,” the man whispered. “You are an interesting man, Kozmotis Pitchiner. There aren’t many people in this world who do not fear death.” Kozmotis didn’t ask how the man knew his name.

 

“I’ll tell you what. I’m feeling generous today. I won’t rob you and leave you here to die, but in return, you must give me something better. Tell me,” the wanderer said thoughtfully, “What would you give to have something worth living for again?” The monkey on his shoulders hopped agitatedly, baring its canines as its master spoke.

 

Kozmotis didn’t answer until the wanderer slapped his cheek. “Don’t die yet.”

 

He groaned, trying to listen. “I-”

 

“I’m a weary man, Kozmotis. I know weary. I am weary. But you, you are not weary yet. You could be so much more.” The wanderer seemed excited, and it was palpable through the frost. It seemed to jumpstart the slowly beating heart in Kozmotis’ chest.

 

Kozmtois thought of his daughter, his thoughts still miles away.

 

“If you die, what will become of the memories of your family? How do you know you will be able to remember them, if you’re lost in the void? I could help you, Kozmotis, and you would be doing an old fool like me a great service. What would you give to keep dreaming of your daughter at night?”

 

Pitch gazed up at the wanderer, and through the haze, he frowned. A fear he hadn’t known gripped him, and he struggled. The wanderer seemed pleased. “Who are you?” he rasped out, and the stranger chuckled.

 

“I am anyone you want me to be. A wanderer. A merchant. An old fool with a monkey and a deck of cards.”

 

When he was younger, Kozmotis’ mother used to say Satan manipulated you at your weakest moments. It was why she’d force him on his knees by the bed at the night, and he’d hated it. Hated sitting there until his knees ached, waiting for her to nudge him gently when it was over. He thought of her now, bible in hand. _Kozmotis_ , she’d say, y _ou must say your prayers at night or when that time comes, you won’t know right from wrong. You’re such a naughty boy!_

 

“Are you Satan?” he wondered, and for a moment he was unsure if he’d said it aloud, or thought it. The man laughed heartily.

 

“If you want me to be,” the wanderer answered darkly. He held out his hand.

 

“Take my hand, Kozmotis. Take it, and see.”

 

Kozmotis stared at the outstretched hand. At its calloused, blistered skin and knobby knuckles. “I just want to see my daughter again.”

 

“You will,” said the wanderer.

 

Kozmotis took his hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

The cigar smoke burned Pitch Black’s throat, and he grimaced, coughing as he exhaled. The music had changed along the way, and he blinked. He hadn’t noticed. The charge from the show was beginning to simmer into a slow-burning contentment that made him feel sleepy.

 

He hated sleeping.

 

He grinned bitterly. Oh, that old bastard hadn’t gone back on his word had he? He’d promised Pitch his daughter, and the little devil had given her to him. Every night when he slept, he dreamed of his daughter’s nightmares, of the suffocating fear she felt as the flames licked her skin when she died.

 

The worst part of it was, his own fear and despair was good as cocaine to his blood, but it only lasted for short bursts. A man like Pitch Black had no fears, except for his dreams at night. It was why he fed off others, drifting from shadow to shadow in waiting like the boogey man, just to taste their nightmares and screams. He had woken up alone after he’d taken the wanderer’s hand, left with a monkey and a donkey. When the animals had tried to run off to freedom, they’d dropped dead.

 

Those first years, the hunger would get so bad he’d look old in a matter of days. Instead of seeking what he needed, he only slept, living off his own nightmares. Eventually, it didn’t frighten him as badly. He became thin and weak and desperate. Nothing sated him. Food tasted like dust and made him vomit if he forced it. Wine and water burned his stomach. He resorted to creeping into the bedrooms of children, using his own shadow to make them scream.

 

Only then could he live like a man.

 

He used to wonder what black magic this was. What kind of curse some old witch had put on that little patched man. Who would be so cruel as to curse another to immortality with every scream? That old man had died so quickly and peacefully when Pitch took his hand, he’d passed away with a smile on his face and a guttural “thank you”, oblivious to Pitch’s screams as the fears and horrors of others nearby began to drill into his mind, course through his blood, and drive him mad.

 

It seemed a fitting punishment for taking the hand of a mysterious old man who promised him a dead daughter.

 

The circus had never occurred to him until he’d left for America. In America, they called him Viktor. In America, the railroads took him to the circus. In America, he became Pitch Black.

 

He’d been lost, homeless, a shadow on the corner of the street. One day he met a fat, bristly man at a bar and had a few laughs. Ennis Halloway had been an interesting man. Loved cards and a good fright almost as much as he loved a curvy woman. Never seen without his bowler hat. He’d been lamenting about the quite unfortunate death of an employee. It was when he’d discovered the man next to him was not only without a home, but without work, that Ennis wriggled in his seat like a boy who’d just found a lucky penny.

 

“Well, I got just the proposition for you. You could live a good life, Viktor. An exciting life. Have you ever considered the life of an entertainer? Stardom? Your face on a poster? Known around the world?” And so Pitch Black listened to the grim tale of Mr. Ennis Halloway’s International, Inconceivable, Incredible Midnight Freak Show.

 

“Maybe the name needs a little work,” Ennis had burped after a moment’s consideration, leaning over the bar table like a slab of whale blubber, and Pitch had laughed louder than he had in years.

 

He started off as a performer. Cheap makeup, mask, and cloak. He’ thrived off the unease from some of the customers. When old Ennis keeled over from a heart attack some years later, Pitch Black had moved up fast over the years. He took over. Renamed the show. Hired new freaks. Took the show on the road.

 

Those who disagreed quit. Those who quit dropped dead. He could never say why it happened, only that always did. He’d hightailed it out of there before the sheriff could become involved. Changed the name of the show, bought a suit and a tie and a record player for his car.

 

By then, his nightmares at night were only dreams. And he nursed memories of his daughter like a good, strong drink.

 

Pitch Black downed another shot of whiskey, glared at the window and waited still. Jackson had yet to return, and Pitch was left with nothing but memories he didn’t want to revisit. His fingers drummed along the armrest to his chair. The seconds trickled slowly by, and he thought, just for a moment, what he’d do if Jackson said no to his offer.His glass shook as he brought it to his lips for another sip. Thoroughly annoyed with his own thoughts and impatience, the ringmaster dressed more appropriately and stepped outside. He would not be kept waiting.

 

The air was cool and sweet with a bite of hay, but he couldn’t appreciate it. He stalked towards the trees, but suddenly a lantern’s light broke past the shadow, and he could make out a figure. Then another. Pitch Black narrowed his eyes. The music from his car was drifting out of the window, and its lazy melody seemed to mock his dark mood.

 

If Jackson was surprised to see the ringmaster waiting for him in the grass,  hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes blazing, he didn’t show it. Jackson only nodded in acknowledgement with a “My friend needs a place to sleep tonight.” He said it in a way that made Pitch fidget, want another smoke and a dark room and Jack. Pitch watched Jackson’s face carefully, studied the angle of his chin and how his jaw was set until the boy looked away. His eyes flicked over to the figure beside him.

 

Pitch’s frown deepened. He lit a cigarette. The flame from the match bobbed and shuddered with the tremor in his hands.

 

Jackson and his friend just waited and watched. Pitch Black didn’t miss the way the other boy stood too close.

 

Oh this new kid was a handsome fella in a rugged, country sort of way. A little taller, lanky but sinewy, with a head of dark hair and ears that stuck out almost comically, clashing with his serious face. He had the type of eyes Pitch didn’t like. Suspicious, scrutinizing, and watching Jack too closely.

 

The smoke began to burn his lungs. He exhaled slowly, the new kid wincing against the cloud.

 

“Of course,” Pitch said, voice rigid and courteous. “Any friend of Jack’s is a friend of mine.” His lips stretched over his teeth in a threatening way. The other boy raised a brow, but held out his hand in greeting.

 

“Aster Mund,” he said in a drawl as they shook hands. Jack watched them, and Pitch wondered if the boy was worried, the way his eyes flicked back and forth between them. Jack’s dark gaze landed on Aster for just a few seconds longer. It struck a chord somewhere in the black void of Pitch Black’s chest.

 

Maybe it was jealousy.

 

Pitch Black knew those kind of eyes Aster had; knew them well. He knew, because they were his eyes whenever he watched Jack from afar. His jaw worked, unsettling thoughts giving way to anger. But he hid it well.

 

He hadn’t come so far only to lose the very boy he’d cursed to stay by his side.

 

“Welcome to the Fright, Mr. Mund. I'm sure you’ll find your stay with us to be most...exhilarating.” He smiled again, and Aster eyed him boldly, once again looking to Jack.

 

“Thank you kindly, sir. I won’t be much trouble.”

 

“Of course not,” Pitch replied, and before anyone had time to think about it, he said, “It’s late. Most of the crew is retiring for the night. Jack will show you to an empty bunk. And Mr. Mund?” The boy turned to look at him and Pitch Black noticed how Jack tensed.

 

“I assure you, trouble makers won’t be taken to kindly. I’ll hold you to your word.” He gestured ahead of him, and Aster looked back at Jack once more before taking a step forward. Just as Jack was about to pass, Pitch gripped his wrist and hissed,

 

“You remember, Jackson, remember what I told you. And don’t leave me waiting.”

 

The boy pulled his wrist out of the ringmaster’s grip and said lowly, “How can I forget?”

 

Pitch straightened, watched them walk ahead, eyes boring into the boy called Aster. In the dark up ahead, he noticed Hugh the clown giggling with a woman. A townie, maybe. She was batting her eyelashes and touching his wrist. His eyes flicked back over to the boys, watching as their hands bumped, just slightly, as they walked. Slowly, they vanished from his sight.

 

Living as long as he had came with a few perks. Sometimes, Pitch liked to entertain the thought that he was wise. He’d played this game before, knew how to deal his cards. He smoked by the train until Hugh came by, whistling some old tune that made the haggard clown seem thirty youngers younger.

 

Pitch Black smiled as he offered Hugh a cigarette. Aster Mund was in for a surprise if he thought he could spirit Jack away.

 

* * *

 

Aster used to say Jack couldn’t lie worth a shit.

 

“Shoot, you’re easier to read’n a open comic book,” he’d laugh. They were twelve, and Jack remembered it was November, with a sky that looked grayer than the peppered hair peeking out in Pops’ dark hair. They’d been outside too long, pink from the cold. Their hands were beginning to sting from scooping up snow and throwing it at each other.

 

They’d found a still-burning cigarette butt in the barn when they raced inside, and both were coughing their lungs out, their tongues turned to ash.

 

Jack had straightened himself, eyes watering, and said, “It ain’t so bad.” He brought it back to his lips like he meant it, except that Aster started laughing so hard at the face he pulled, his friend nearly doubled over, gasping and coughing.

 

“You’re full of shit.”

 

And maybe Jack was.

 

So when he looked Toothiana in the eye as she laughed her twinkling laugh and looked at Aster with the kind of pouty smile that always made Sanderson Mansnoozie nice for a few precious moments, Jack could see she knew he was lying. In her glitter and sequins and lipstick, it was easy to forget she was only nineteen, when she read people like a mother and spoke like a movie star.

 

“C’mon, Jackie. It’ll be fun,” She threw her boa over his shoulders and pulled him forward so he bumped against her small breasts. Her violet eyes were dancing, and he could still see her invitation.

 

He and Aster had walked to the bunks in silence. Something cold that made him walk slower and made him keep looking over his shoulder, like the ghost at his side would suddenly disappear and never come back.

 

He didn’t know if he wanted that or not.

 

No sooner had Aster jumped on his bed had a knock come to the door, and Jack had been surprised to see Toothiana on the other side. She’d touched his shoulder, flipped her hair, laughed, invited them for drinks.

 

“Kinda tired tonight,” Jack lied, and she clucked at him.

 

“You’re a terrible liar, Jack,” she giggled, and Aster snorted behind him. She grinned. “I know Sandy can be a little mean, but he’s only bitter. Turned more’n a few heads when PItch brought you on board, even more when he took you from cleaning horse shit to being on the tightrope. You just gotta make nice,” she leaned in close to whisper, “and you’ll be surprised how many more friends you make. Who knows, might be someone as interesting as Pitch Black.”

 

She winked at his frown.  “We’re still in wardrobe, if you want.” She twirled away, waving to Aster and singing goodnight.

 

Jack closed the door and the dark swallowed the room whole. For a moment he paused, waited to hear the sound of Aster settle on the bed, for the soft snores he knew, but they never came. The oil lamp flickered to life, and Aster moved to sit on the edge of the bed. Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets and kept staring at the door. If this had been any other time, they'd be laughing by now. Goofing off, talking like nothing bad had happened. 

 

 

He was at a loss for what to say. Had nothing _to_ say-

 

“Been here all this time, huh?” Aster asked, and with each thud of his heart, Jack wondered if the sick feeling in his gut was guilt.

 

There had been nights, so long ago it seemed he’d dreamed them, where he’d imagine they’d run until they hit the sun on the other side of the country, maybe even the world. Maybe they’d live like princes of thieves in a lap of luxury. Get an apartment in Chicago and see the lights. Maybe they’d board a boat and let the sea decide. It didn’t matter what adventure the road gave them, they’d do it together. Friends, brothers, thicker than blood. But maybe, once, it was more than that. And maybe, maybe, Jack had tried to run from it.

 

He thought of his mother, who’d also ran, and wondered what she was doing right then. He’d written her, months ago for the first time since he left and was finally able to find her after writing his aunt. She’d asked about Aster in her letter. Jack had ignored the question, wrote his mother about the show instead.

 

Jack winced.  “You gotta understand-”

 

“Ain’t much to get,” Aster cut him off, hard and cold. “Six  years. Six fucking years, an’ I thought I knew you better than my own dad.”

 

Jack swallowed, balled his hands into fists in his pockets, mouth twisted in a scowl. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. Not this way. Aster paused, and Jack could hear him take a breath, stand and pace a few steps. He didn’t have to look to know exactly what Aster was doing. He’d pace back and forth, twice, take off his cap, rub his eyes like he had a headache.

 

“Well, shit. Guess I was good for one thing. A pretty fucking easy way out.”

 

Jack’s turned, his heart so loud he could feel it drumming in his ears with his anger. “Don't talk like you _know_ shit, Aster-” he started to say, but stumbled when Aster shoved him roughly, grabbing him by the collar. The muscles in Aster’s jaw twitched, worked, along with the tears he wasn’t willing to shed that were trembling on his lashes. The sight stunned him. The last time Jack had seen Aster cry, they’d been thirteen years old. Somehow, the thought struck him, left him numb. Jack didn’t fight against his grip.

 

“Why’d you leave me there?!” Aster’s voice was raw, choked. “You left me there, with _him_! Like I was nothing! I looked like a goddamned fool!”

 

A chill ran up Jack’s spine. It was true. He’d left Aster behind with the man he hated. Those thoughts used to keep him up at night, but lately, he hadn’t had any trouble sleeping. He wanted to say something meaningful, but there was nothing to say. Only  _I'm sorry._

 

 

Aster shook his head in defeat. “Know what he said? Know what he told me when I had nowhere else to go but back there? Told me I should take a lesson from my Ma.” The way he said it made Jack’s shoulders sag. Aster released his grip and took a step back.

 

“And I wondered if the son of a bitch had a point,” he whispered. Jack shook his head. For several moments he couldn’t speak, and Aster swiped his eyes on his arm.

 

“I had to do this alone.” It was a feeble excuse. He sat on the edge of a bunk, running a hand through dark hair.

 

“I had to get out of there. Couldn’t stand bein’ so close to Laura’s grave…” he trailed off, and thought of her voice, light and always full of awe. He didn’t want that life. Hated it after Laura died. Any place was better than that place. He’d needed somewhere new, something fresh.

 

 _D’you think God has magic?_ And he’d spent the last few months wondering if magic came with a curse, because he’d thought he’d found it.

 

Jack sighed. “Shit. I did what I had to.”

 

“What you had to,” Aster echoed menacingly. “Alright, Jack. It was never about us leaving together, was it? Only finding a new place for  you to hide. So, this who you are now? Jack Frost?” He grinned bitterly.

 

Jack looked up at him, his thoughts whirring, his body carrying him through the words on a rush of adrenaline at the sight of Aster, at the anger of it all, at the desperate happiness that however horrible he’d been, he’d still been found.

 

“And for what, huh? Walkin’ a tightrope under the wing of that freak? An’ don’t tell me he ain’t. Something’s funny ‘bout that boss of yours. The way he watches you.”

 

Jack didn’t answer, only scoffed. “This all you came here for? Why don’t you take a swing? Get it over with and get out.”

 

But there was a part of him that didn’t want Aster to leave. Wanted to laugh and show him Hugh’s card tricks, because when that guy wasn’t dressed up as a demon, he was one hell of a magician. Or admit that Wolf Man, no matter how odd he looked, was something of a scholar. Sarcastic, mellow, and never without a book. Sometimes he read the same book over and over. Jack had seen him reading the Iliad, Paradise Lost, and The Count of Monte Cristo. Or that Matilde was the sweetest woman he’d ever met.

 

But then he remembered Pitch Black in his car and cigar smoke, with his eyes that pierced through shadows and grin that made Jack’s heart beat too fast. There had been nights Jack wanted to hate him. Nights he wondered if this magic wasn’t magic at all, but something worse, and those were the nights he thought of Aster, of Keyes, of his mother, so much that he could floated right to them the need to see them was so bad. Then Pitch would talk to him at night, low and quiet and reassuring, like he understood. Like he knew the pain, and suddenly, it was like they were one of the same, and Jack couldn’t let go, needed to hear him again. Pitch Black had taken his old life away and given him a new one. Isn’t that what he’d wanted? 

 

_You and I Jack….We could live forever in this miserable world._

 

The dark place in his heart wanted so desperately to believe it. Aster fidgeted, and Jack could see him out of the corner of his eye. He watched, like an outsider looking in, at this young man. He’d grown up, Jack realized. Aster had turned into a good man. Jack knew, because Aster never left anyone behind. Not even Jack.

 

What would life had been like, if they’d boarded the train together? If Jack had never found the Fright and signed his name? Would they have ever seen lights in Chicago? Seen lighthouses in Maine? The Rocky Mountains in the West? Would new times be as good as old times? Or better?

 

“Naw. That’s not it. But...Who are you, Jack?” Aster asked quietly after the silence stretched on too long. “Only got room in this world for one kind of you. So which one’s it gonna be?”

 

Jack met the green eyes he knew so well. Aster stepped closer, closer, closer still, until he was right before Jack, green eyes watching like they always had. Never too far away, always closer than Jack had realized. What would it have been like, Jack wondered again.

 

He’d never know. He knew his future, and if he saw lights, he’d see them from under the Big Top, bright like fireworks. His own little Chicago. Something about him had forever changed when he'd signed his name. It was something Aster would never understand, because Aster was still the same.

 

Jack wanted more than the same. The Fright was more. He would have been trapped anyway, he guessed. Left here to rot out his days, but an old power lurked in this circus, and there were times Jack felt himself seeking it, just to see.

 

He stood up, and he could almost feel the warmth between them. “You’ve known me a long time, Aster. Why don’t you tell me who you think I am?” he asked quietly. Aster opened his mouth to speak, but all Jack heard was a scream. It pierced through the night and wound down the dirt road, and Aster threw open the door to the car to poke his head outside.

 

“Oh my God, oh my God! Please! Please!”  a woman was wailing. She looked dazed, terrified, walking blindly to and fro trying to find someone, her curls a mess and sticking to tear-stained cheeks. Jack and Aster shared a look before darting towards her, and he knew in that moment, the chance to redeem himself was gone.

 

The woman screamed as they got close, but Jack shushed her, took her hands, while Aster said “Ma’m? Ma’m, you’re gonna be alright,” like some kind of good cop. All she could say was “Hugh. H-Hugh!” She pointed behind her, towards the dirt road then bent over and vomited. By then the others were trickling out to investigate. Aster looked to Jack before running to the road, and Jack watched with bated breath until he came to a slow stop. Wolf Man had been right on his heel, and Jack saw him turn in that slow kind of way when someone wished they hadn’t seen something.

 

Dread welled in his stomach.

 

“What’s all this?” a voice Jack knew so well wanted to know. He turned to see Pitch languidly walking from his car, brow raised. By then, Wolf Man had returned, Aster no too far behind. The others were silent, save for the woman still blubbering and crying.

 

“It’s Hugh,” said Wolf Man quietly. “He’s dead.” The others began to murmur, Toothiana let out a frightened squeak and Sanderson patted her arm. Jack could see Aster wandering closer.

 

“He-he-he just started bleeding! Out of his nose at first, then his ears! Then he stopped t-talking and fell down, and it got worse,” the woman sobbed. “I-I don’t know what happened. We were-I don’t understand! It wasn’t natural-!” she couldn’t finish.

 

But everyone knew what happened, because they had all imagined running themselves at one point or another, but no one would dare admit it. That fear Jack had first known when signing his contract began to bubble over his skin.

 

_You and I Jack….We could live forever in this miserable world._

 

Slowly, Jack turned to look to Pitch Black, who was attempting to calm the woman down with soft words and a comforting hand.

 

Did Jack want to live forever? Laura used to say if there was magic in the world, you’d be a fool to let it go once you found it. But what was magic really?

 

_You can’t possibly think I’d be so heartless as to plan this outcome, do you?_

 

_You’re amazing, Jack. Amazing._

 

Touches. Kisses. Along his collar bone. His jaw, up to his lips. So soft, so sincere. Cool fingers that burned his skin. A place in the dark, chipped away from the rest of the world, and he saw lights and imagined it was Chicago. It could have been. Maybe one day it would be.

 

_You’re not as alone as you think, Jack. You don’t have to live in the past. There’s always a new future._

 

But Jack remembered green eyes. Laughter in the corn. Cold nights spent under scratchy wool sweaters and a blanket, trying to read comic books when they were supposed to be asleep. Oklahoma suns, the smell of sweat and hay, and Aster getting slapped for saying “aw shit” too many times to count. Aster whispering about adventure. And Jack would grin, because then, it was an adventure.

 

 _You’re my best friend, Jack_.

 

In that moment, Pitch Black met Jack’s gaze, and he searched, searched for something truly evil and dark. He saw a ringmaster, a man with too many secrets and a crooked smirk. A man who liked to play with magic, and knew too many of Jack’s thoughts. He couldn’t go back even if he wanted. He looked over to the jagged black outline of the woods where Hugh's body was hiding. Jack wasn’t going to try to. He'd had dealt his cards, made a deal with the Devil, and now he was going to pay his due.

 

A cab was called, and once Hugh’s woman was gone everything catapulted into chaos. All that time Aster had been close by, waiting, watching.

 

_Only got room in this world for one kind of you. So which one’s it gonna be?_

 

Sometimes he still didn’t know. Couldn’t he just be Jack? That kid who pulled pranks and laughed too loud. That kid who walked the tightrope and brooded when no one was looking.

 

Pitch Black clapped his hands, and Jack’s thoughts drifted to the present.

 

“Let’s go. No time to dally. She was hysterical. Not long before the police are here, and we have to be gone by then if we want to keep the circus alive. Can’t keep having this false accusations. This is our home, our lives. We can’t compromise it,” the ringmaster ordered. His eyes found Aster.

 

"Jackson. You best set your friend on his way. It's time to move on."

 

A silence stretched between them. Jack watched as Hugh’s body was lifted, moved farther away and dumped into bordering woods. The cops would find Hugh covered in leaves later. They'd find him draped in a cape soft as velvet, a cape that smelled like smoke and cologne. A cape monogrammed with the letters _P.B_ _._  Jack watched as the tents came down and people milled through the fair grounds like ants.

 

And still Aster waited.

 

And still Pitch Black watched.

 

Jack worked, sweated as he took down beams, asked after Jamie and helped him back into his car into bed. All the while Aster worked silently beside him, tucked Jamie into bed after him.

 

“Where are we going? Why are we leaving? Jack, I don’t want to go yet. My arm hurts too much,” Jamie whimpered from beneath the covers. He was sweating from the morphine.

 

“If we don’t go, Jamie, how are we going to find someplace better?” Jack ruffled his hair, watched until he fell asleep, but Aster was blocking the way out.

 

“Leave with me,” he said. Jack froze.

 

“Let’s go. Leave this freakshow. We’ll even take the kid with if you want. Something’s not right about this place, Jack. I can feel it, ever since I got here. I dunno, it’s just a feeling...like when the hair on the back of your neck stands up? Sounds stupid but...” Aster trailed, shaking his head, but he took Jack’s wrist.

 

“Let’s go. Somethin’ ain’t right if you gotta leave just ‘cause that guy happened to drop dead. And Mr. Black can’t be any better. Why leave if you ain’t got nothing to hide? Shady as all hell. If we leave now, no one will see us. They won’t even know.” His words came out in a whoosh.

 

Jack thought of Hugh and wondered what he’d been thinking when he'd tried to run off with that woman. Thought of Pitch Black and magic and Laura, how he’d give anything not to go back to where he once was. He thought of Aster. Would he ever forgive Jack for this?

 

“I can’t-”

 

“Just you and me like old times,” Aster pressed, taking Jack's arm by the elbow. Jack could feel the tug, the pull to leave. But there was no way to explain, no way to make Aster see why he couldn't leave without his friend doing something rash. Jack had a contract he couldn't break. Pitch Black had simply turned into an interesting  _someone_ along the way. Aster wouldn't understand. Jack sighed.

 

 “Don’t...don’t go with ‘em," Aster whispered. Jack shook his head, opened his mouth to say something but again he couldn't find the words.

 

And suddenly a strong hand was warm on the back of Jack’s neck, pulling him close until a rough mouth met his own.

 

Aster tasted like sugar, like the cotton candy from the show. Jack shivered and Aster groaned, but Jack broke the kiss with a gasp of breath, Aster’s forehead resting on his own.

 

It was over.

 

“You gotta go.” Jack's mouth moved against Aster's cheek, brushed his bottom lip, made him wonder, just for a second, what it would have been like. He pulled away.

 

Aster swallowed, scowled, stepped back as if he’d been burned. He shook his head and cursed. He looked lethal. “It’s him, huh? The ringmaster?”

 

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to look at him. “You don’t gotta worry ‘bout me, ‘bout him.”

 

From the door the moonlight reached Aster in broken beams, and Jack saw a different future, a different road, flit away faster than scattering light. He didn’t try to catch it. Later, he would wonder if maybe, he should have. Later, he would ask himself what it was about Pitch Black that Jack couldn’t leave behind.

 

But he already knew, even then. Pitch Black embodied everything Jack had wished for, and if that was a bad thing, he found out too late.

 

Aster turned away, and the last Jack ever saw of him was the back of his shirt, his hair sticking out from underneath his cap in the way he’d always remember, moonlight eclipsing his face as he looked away.

 

Jack would always wonder what he’d been thinking when the train lurched, then began to slowly inch forward.

 

“See ya ‘round, Jack.” Jack knew he didn’t mean it. Aster jumped from the car, and suddenly he was gone.

 

And Jack was alone. For a moment, he thought he knew what Aster could have been thinking, but never once said.

 

_I could have been good for you._

* * *

 

Mr. Black was waiting for him, in smoke and shadow and music. He sat in his chair like a king. Regal and lethal and somehow precious. In the dark, Jack saw him grin, so wide his teeth seemed to glint in the moonlight. It was a pull Jack couldn’t explain, and never tried to fight.

Maybe it was the magic he so desperately wanted.

 

That first night he saw Pitch Black perform, the spotlight made him glow eerily, made him seem like a true magician. Someone who made the impossible bloom before your eyes.

 

“Where is your friend?” he asked, in that silky voice of his. Jack paused, looking to the window, to the trees that blurred past as the train sped along.

 

“Gone now.”

 

Mr. Black exhaled, stamped out his cigarette, uncrossed his legs. “It's...highly unlikely you'll ever see him again, given how often we need to move the show on the road." He paused, as if to gauge Jack's reaction. Jack said nothing. "So, what do you say, Jack? You and me? We’ll take this hell by the horns and make it heaven.” He chuckled.

 

Jack watched him closely. “Only reason I came here in the first place was to forget,” he said lowly, thinking back. Pitch Black nodded. Without ever once saying it, Jack had made his choice. The ringmaster only smiled wider, but his eyes held a somber knowledge.

 

“Your sister, your mother, your father. That friend of yours,” Mr. Black mused. His bright eyes found Jack, and he beckoned him forward.

 

“Come here,” he whispered and Jack felt himself drawn. “Come here, and I’ll show you a life worth living for.”

 

His hands were cool on Jack’s skin, his kisses cold and fierce. He tore away at Jack’s shirt with fingers like steel teeth, but Jack wasn’t any nicer. The ringmaster had laughed, low and deep, when Jack’s pulls and tugs ripped away a button or two. And when Jack was pinned beneath him on the bed, Pitch Black’s eyes began to glow. With a gentle touch he cupped Jack’s cheek and leaned down close.

 

Jack held his breath, felt it hitch in his chest.

 

“Close your eyes. I promise it won’t last long, _porumbita_. But you can’t be a fledgling forever.”

 

That word was always spoken so softly, like a kiss. Jack never knew what it meant, never asked. He closed his eyes, and the dark washed over him like icy water. Pitch's lips caught his own. Jack screamed at what he saw. 

  
Some magic was better left forgotten.


	4. Take Hell by the horns and make it Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ist Ihre haut wirklich so kalt, Jack Frost?"
> 
> Is your skin really so cold, Jack Frost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's corrected me when it comes to translations! SO very appreciated, as I really only used Google Translate. Please, correct me in a comment if you notice anything!
> 
> Songs mentioned: Schön ist die Nacht ( Oskar Joost, 1939)  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxY8i7HqOb4
> 
> Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones 1968)  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBecM3CQVD8
> 
> Other notes: More dub-con, and prepare yourself as the story moves along, as we're headed into WWII. As said in the warnings, there's a bit of tragedy in here to go along with the "sold my soul to the devil" theme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Jack,_

_I hope this finds you well. I can’t say how many nights I’ve lain awake wondering what you need out there. There are times I ask God to send you right home again, but then I remember you telling me in your letter that you had to do this for yourself. And I suppose that’s good for the soul. You’re a young man now, not a boy. You have to know who you are, and that’s something I can’t tell you. I’ve joined the ladies auxiliary at the Church. They asked me about my children yesterday, and I said I had an angel and a son who traveled the country doing business. They seem to think you’re some kind of lawyer or big shot. I didn’t tell them you weren’t, and I know I was always setting you straight for fibbing, though I can’t say it didn’t make me laugh. I got the house clean and all moved in. I bought a kitten yesterday and it doesn’t feel so empty. Well. I think I’ve rambled enough. Have you heard from Aster? Don’t know where he’s living these days. Don’t break your neck on that tightrope. You make sure you eat right, even your greens. Say your prayers at night. And if you get sick, make sure you rest_

_All my love,_

  
_Mama_

 

 

Jack kept the letter under his pillow, and sometimes it was the only thing that kept him sane while the fear took hold. There were nights, while he lay curled under the blankets and trying to decide whether to welcome the wails in his head or fight them, Jack dreamed of Aster. Others of his mother, of his father. Then he dreamed of Laura. Still and cold and so frightened of death he could feel his own body seize in a fit as he dreamed, as he felt her die over and over and over again.

 

And he despised it. Loved it. Mourned its return. Welcomed it hungrily. Each time he woke he felt stronger, lighter, better. Another morning, after a particularly bad nightmare about Laura, he woke to find his dark hair had shocked itself silver, his dark eyes frosted blue. He’d laughed at himself in the bathroom mirror.

 

He’d wondered what Aster would have said before he realized what he’d been thinking. It was a simple thought, but suddenly Jack found himself bent over, stomach churning, blood pumping with adrenaline as his mind overflowed with Aster’s fears. Of hands beating down and a dark corner in a closet.

 

His chest ached when another fear cut him, bent him over the sink even harder. It was a fear Jack should have known he’d see. It was Aster’s fear of never seeing Jack again, and Jack saw his face the way Aster saw it, saw himself fade away and turn to the ringmaster. And he felt cold, cold, angry, agonized, and so, so scared.

 

_Ain’t nobody ever gonna love you._

 

Please come back, he thought, and his eyes rolled in ecstasy with the magic that flowed through his veins with the fear. When he opened his eyes he felt he could run for years and never tire. He wanted to hate it, but he couldn’t. Just for a moment, he just wanted a moment to loathe it. To mourn it. Then he was riding too high from it and bile burned the back of his throat. His hold on the lip of the sink tightened.

 

 _It won’t last long. If you think of the people you’re close to, you may become attuned to their fears, even if they’re dead, even if you’re miles apart. It’ll pass,_ Pitch Black had promised. The fear cut him like glass, and he couldn’t yet control its current. It bored into him unforgivingly,  drilled into his brain and forced tears that weren’t his leak from the corners of his eyes. But then it would end, and he’d feel so alive. Once, he vomited from it. Another time, Pitch Black held him until he stopped shaking.

 

But Jack hadn’t been afraid by then. Oh no. He was high, high, high and the world was spinning below him, churning with nightmares. Like nothing he’d ever seen before.

 

“The first few times are the most difficult,” he could hear Pitch Black say. “You’ll adjust.”

 

As his thoughts spun Jack thought he could hear Aster say _I could have been good for you_. The nightmares took hold and the world spun back into view. Bolder. Brighter. Beautiful.

 

Jack would never know.

 

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later Hugh’s death had made news. Big news. Turned out a detective had been following the deaths for some time. Solemn fellow, and when Jack saw his picture in the papers he imagined a lonely man who lived in one of those houses surrounded by forest and fog, empty and lonely at night, with no one to talk to but the pictures of the criminals he followed. Other reports came in. Mysterious deaths revolving around a traveling circus. _Who is the Ringmaster?_ a headline asked. The press wrote ' _Ringmaster'_ so it would be read like Lucifer or Murderer. People whispered in alleyways about a serial killer who wore velvet and a tophate, someone who smiled and gave you a show while you died. 

Jack grinned, folded his newspaper and tucked it away under his arm. The streets in Chicago were crowded, and a newsboy called out shrilly, “Extra! Extra! Mysterious deaths linked to freakshow!” A woman paused to buy a paper, and Jack took a breath, inhaling deeply so it filled his chest. There was a bit of skip to his step as he walked.

Some days, fear had a smell. Other times, it reminded him of a color, and the brighter it was, the more it filled him. Today, it reminded him of a brisk wind. The type of cold that seeped through clothes and bit your fingers raw.

“How horrid,” the woman remarked as she read, and Jack could feel her unease. It put another spring his step. He hummed a song and nicked an apple from a stand outside a market, tossing it to the orphan hidden away in a corner with a wink. He made his way over to her and looked down at her paper.

“Never know what’s around the corner,” he said, surprising her, and the woman looked up. She was young. Pretty. Doe eyes. Easy to scare, he could tell. He licked his lips, smiled wider.

“But that’s what makes life exciting, right?” He plucked a ticket from his coat pocket and handed it to her with a thousand watt grin.

“I promise you, Miss. You won’t be disappointed.”

She blushed like a schoolgirl, tucking the ticket away in her bag after reading it.  “Midnight Fright,” she read aloud.

Jack smiled the type of smile that always made his mother look at him like an angel after he’d been a little devil.

“Best show this side of Illinois.” He tipped his hat. She giggled.

And it really was.

It was the last show Pitch Black gave the United States, and when Jack took a step back to admire it, like he was just a nobody looking in, Jack loved every minute. That night he drank in the screams on the tightrope and laughed with the moon. Maybe one day he’d be as old as it.

He danced and rocked the rest of the night away with a man who knew no fear, and Jack was none the wiser.

Weeks ago, he’d told himself to stop dreaming of Aster. If you’re gonna make a deal with the devil, you won’t get that soul of yours back, he remembered his mother saying. So he laughed and he drank and he screamed and he ate, and at night with only the moon as witness, he wept. The dreams of Laura no longer scared him, and dreams of Aster were far and in between.

 

* * *

 

September 1938, Jack saw Paris France, and the lights were better than Chicago.

Jack wore his mask on opening night, and when the women yelped in fright and their men laughed uneasily, Jack only smiled as he admitted them.

“ _Bienvenue à la Peur_ ,” he said with a sweeping bow meant to entertain. Toothiana would laugh about it later and ask if he spoke French in bed. _Gonna use that trick on someone tonight?_

“You know how to draw ‘em in, Jackie,” she teased while they prepped for the show’s finale in Wardrobe. He watched her put on her makeup, smack her lips, put on her rainbow headdress and place her fake fangs. He could hear the music out on stage.

“"Vos plus sombres cauchemars transformés en joie !”   _Your darkest nightmares turned to glee!_ Jack heard the Marionette’s sing in their haunting sopranos.

Wasn’t that the truth, he thought set his mask in place, watching himself in the mirror closely.  In Paris, dreams seemed to come true.

Pitch Black would see to it. It was an odd dance Jack kept alive. Forward and back, forward and back. He’d allow Pitch to come to him. He’d go to the ringmaster himself when he felt too empty, too deprived. As the days passed, the dance grew stale.

And Pitch would say _just you and me, Jack. Just how it’s supposed to be_.

Jack never said anything back, didn’t try to. Only looked at the ceiling while Pitch whispered in his ear, while Jack gripped his shoulders tight and winced. Where was his soul? he thought, as the mold and crash of their bodies made his head loll back, smack the wall behind him. He kept staring at the ceiling, thinking of his contract, riding out the ecstasy,

Did Pitch Black keep it in a box?

His fingers bit into the ringmaster’s skin with each movement, until what little there was of his nails had cut little half-moons in the skin. Black took it for passion. And as the ringmaster rested his forehead against Jack’s, he said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Jack didn’t say anything, not until Pitch Black’s cold fingers took his chin, forcing Jack to look in his amber eyes.

“You can’t hide from me, Jackson,” he warned, and he smiled. “There’s no need. Are you not happy with what I’ve given you? Have I not given you all you could desire? A new life. Magic of your very own that you could only dream of. A partner,” he paused to catch Jack’s bottom lip, nipping it ”who knows you inside and out? With the same desires?”

Jack watched him for a long while before saying, “Only after you took my name.” There was a roar in his chest as he said it, and it made him feel alive.

There was a tense silence. One that lasted too long. Finally, Pitch Black laughed, rising from the bed.

“You do know how to keep a man on his toes, Jack.” He slipped his arms through a shirt, smoothing out the collar and buttoning up. Jack threw an arm over his eyes, not sure if he wanted to forget.

He knew it irritated Pitch Black. Made him restless. Antsy.

A hand gripped his wrist, forced his arm away, and Jack’s eyes followed the lines and grooves of Pitch Black’s face. The way his lips curled into a frown, the way his eyes narrowed, just slightly. The cut of his jaw, sinister in the half-light of Paris’ glow.

  
“What are you thinking?”

Jack grinned, slowly. “Where do you keep it, Kozmotis?” he asked, and he enjoyed the way Pitch Black stiffened, froze, the way his eyes went wide.  Jack had done his digging while he was alone in the bedroom, with nothing to do but stare wistfully out the window and wait for the high to drive him back down to earth.

“Where do you keep my soul?”

Pitch Black didn’t move for several seconds. He paled, then slowly, the anger in his face dissolved, and he laughed again. His grip on Jack’s wrist tightened, and Jack watched, warily, as his arm was pinned back. Then the other. The roar in his chest grew louder.

“You’re thinking of him,” Pitch said slowly. “You’re thinking of that boy. Of that gray, desolate life I rid you of. You should be thankful, Jack.” He bent down close, lips whispering in his ear.

Jack smothered his anger, the roar. He stared at the ceiling.

“Thank me,” Pitch Black whispered. Jack swallowed.  Pitch slowly eased back onto the bed, split Jack’s legs apart again with a knee, hovered above him with a hungry glint in his eye.

And once again, Jack wanted to hate him.

“ _Thank_ me, Jack,” he ordered.

Jack thought of what he would have done if his name had not been written on that contract. How he would have hit until his knuckles split. He breathed. In. Out. Slowly. His jaw worked. He chewed on the words.

“I’m waiting, Jack,”

Jack turned his head.

“Perhaps,” said Pitch Black thoughtfully, his eyes running a searing trail down Jack's throat, his exposed chest, “It’s time I remind you why this life shouldn’t be taken for granted, that I have your contract.”

Jack wondered if there was evil in that grin. He thought about a time he'd looked at the ringmaster like he was a man made out of miracles, a man who made wishes come true and gave out new lives like candy.

Jack spent the afternoon in bed, staring at the black from behind his eyelids, body arching, fevered with nightmares. It pumped through him like a river, and after a while, he couldn’t tell what was Pitch Black, and what was fear.

And the pleasure. Spine-tingling. The high, making him feel like he’d died and was having an out-of-body experience. He’d fisted the sheets and closed his eyes, and stopped trying to swallow his cries.

And Pitch Black laughed.  _Thank me for this, Jack, because when you're sane again, you'll feel it. You'll feel it and you'll thank me for it._

 

That evening in Paris, Pitch Black helped him out of bed, brought him water, brushed the hair from his forehead.

“That’s it,” Pitch said softly, “Careful now. Steady. Don’t you feel wonderful? Amazing?”

Jack could see the Paris skyline. The Eiffel tower stark against a blushing sky. A place where dreams came true, and nightmares slinked behind the alleys, waiting to be snatched.

Pitch Black helped Jack into a robe and onto the balcony as the last vestiges of magic began to leak from him. He could feel more than the tingling high again. The floor, cool under his feet. The breeze that buffeted the hair out of his eyes. He could see every color and almost feel it.

A hesitant smile touched his lips, pulled his heart apart when he realized just how good he felt. How strong. And he looked over his shoulder and looked at Pitch Black’s neck with hooded eyes. He wondered how hard he'd have to squeeze. If Pitch felt fear. His body hummed at the thought of Pitch beneath him, the ringmaster's fear coursing through his veins like heroin.

 

“What life could be better than this, Jackson?”

Jack smiled lazily, leaned over the banister until he could have fallen, until it kneaded his gut.

“Not many, I guess,” he said, and rid his thoughts of a familiar face. Pitch Black hummed, lit a cigarette, and took that as a  _thank you._

 

Jack stood there and dreamed, Watched the lights. He thought of his mother saying _You have to know who you are. That's something_ _can't tell who you._ He lit a cigarette and wondered who he was. Maybe he should send her something. A scarf. A little Eiffel tower souvenir. He watched the lights in the city.

The lights in Paris were bright. But the bombs were brighter as war broke out in Europe soon after.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
_Dear Mama,_

_Germany is beautiful. The green keeps going and going and there are mountains that are still capped with snow. It's like something out of a fairy tale, just like Paris. Sometimes I wish you here so I could show you. I know Laura would have loved it, too. I guess the wonder of a mountainside really does show God's majesty, doesn't it? You don't have to worry about me saying my prayers. I guess I say them everytime I see something beautiful. Anyway, Mr. Black says we'll be headed to Berlin soon. Got a big show at the theater. Also we picked up some stragglers along the way. There's this big Russian guy named Nikolas. One look at him and I thought of you, because I know he's someone who'd make you laugh. He sure gets a chuckle out of me. He makes all these little toys when he thinks no one's looking. I asked him to make you one for me. It's a little angel. I thought you'd get it in time for Christmas. There's also this old woman, scary old bag. She's got one eye, a wart on her nose, and her eye makes me think of Prockett. You remember widow Prockett? Whatever happened to her? Let those ladies at the auxiliary think I'm a big shot, and I'll bring them back scarves from Berlin, and you and me can laugh about it when I visit. I don't know where Aster is, but if I know him, I know he's doing something worthwhile and working hard. I don't think you need to worry. And you don't need to worry about me. I'll be okay, I never fall, and I got it figured out. Once the tour ends, we'll be back in the USA. And I'll see you then. All my love and Merry Christmas._

_Your son,_

_Jack_

 

March 11, 1942, _Schön ist die Nacht_ was playing through the rain when Jack felt the cold metal of a pistol kiss the back of his neck. The music was slipping out the window, curling around his ear, singing of prettier moments, happier times. The landscape was dark and bare, just a little dusting of snow to make it brighter under a sickle moon, and the train tracks seemed to lead to hell rather than oblivion.

“" _Kempfen Sie nicht,"_  the soldier was saying gruffly, and he pressed the mouth of the gun harder into the base of Jack’s skull. His heart raced. He held his hands up slowly, not knowing what else to do.

“ _Auf die knie_ ,” the soldier ordered. Jack swallowed. He didn’t understand. He heard a click and his blood roared.

“ _Auf die knie_!”  The pistol was drawn back, then smashed against the back of his head. He stumbled, went down on one knee, eyes watering from the impact.

“On your knees,” the German said again, this time in English. Jack complied, keeping his hands in the air.

He slid his gaze to the side, watched as the Fright’s crew were led, one by one, out of their cars at gunpoint. He saw Toothiana cry, her makeup running in streaks down her face. They were all so  _afraid._ It was making Jack trip as his world brimmed with magic. Three years later, and sometimes the strongest surges of fear were still almost too much to take in at once. Everything looked bright. Too loud. But there was an eye on him and he knew its owner wasn't afraid. He glanced over his shoulder to look at the old woman, the straggler they'd picked up a few weeks ago. She'd never told anyone her name. Only PItch Black seemed to know. She looked away from him, and Jack shivered.

 

Lightning veined the sky, and the sign _Pitch Black Mitternacht Schreck_ loomed before them all like a grin as it slid crookedly and flapped against the car it was pinned to. Jack thought,  _is it laughing at us now?_ The rain was cold. It hit his skin like needles.

 

“ _Gibt es noch Juden in diesem zug_?” another German demanded. Jack shrugged. Got hit. Bit down on his tongue to keep from cursing. He heard Toothiana shriek. The rain didn’t stop, and Jack was beginning to feel cold.

“Are you hiding Jews on this train?” the German asked again. The soldier watched Jack with eyes he could have sworn he’d seen before. It made him uneasy. “There are rumors. We’ve heard of a circus where people disappear. And now here you are.”

Jack swallowed. Looked at the sign. There was a silence. Jack only heard the rain. HIs own unease was making his heart flip, made his world seem to quiver.

“Gentlemen,” came a dark voice Jack knew too well, and he looked to see Pitch Black, ungraceful at gunpoint, but still managing a smirk.

“Gentlemen, I assure you, we’ve nothing to hide. I’m sure you’ll come to find, once you’re satisfied, that this train harbors only innocent circus folk. We mean no harm. Only passing through. Perhaps, Lieutenant,” he said, growing bold, and Jack knew the gleam in his eye, “Perhaps once you’re satisfied, my people might even entertain your camp for the evening. Morale, as I understand it, is important. And happy soldiers are key to excellent morale. A laughter, a little fright, is good for the soul.”

The Lieutenant chuckled. “Ah, Mr. Black, you are a bold one. _Gewagte_.” He looked down at Jack, who was staring hard at the ground. Jack focused on the heartbeats, on the snivels, on the raindrops.

“And what kind of entertainment,” the Lieutenant asked slowly, “can I expect from your show?”

PItch Black straightened a little. “Our circus is one for a good scare, Lieutenant, but I promise to make you smile.”

Jack ground his teeth together.

“Oh?” said the Lieutenant.

“Indeed. And my boy there, Jack, is a star of the show! He plays Jack Frost,” Pitch Black prattled on. Jack looked up to meet his eyes. To silently condemn him. Pitch Black only smiled.

“Jack...Frost?” the Lieutenant repeated uncertainly. Pitch frowned.

“You could say,” he started, digging around for words, “that it’s like _Frau Holle_.”

The Lieutenant laughed loudly. “You play a woman?” he asked, knocking the mouth of the pistol against Jack’s skull. Jack ground his teeth again, kept his anger in check. Pitch Black had specifically ordered that wouldn’t be “a scene”.

 _Just let it happen_ , the ringmaster had insisted once their train was stopped and boarded. _They will leave eventually. Don’t fight. I forbid it._

 _You can’t mean for me to just sit there_ , Jack had stormed as he looked out the window to watch the figures in the rain, but Pitch had a finger to his lips.

 _I have your name, remember?_ Pitch Black had hissed, pulling on his jacket with an easy confidence. _And besides, they’ll never find them. Not when they..._ he smiled, _disappear_. W _e’ll just have to be convincing._ And Jack had cursed him to hell, thought of the new recruits ushered into Pitch Black’s Portal of Mystery. One man was Russian, a giant of a man, great white beard flowing down past his gut. He'd harrumphed at being herded into a box.

" _Ach. I've got my sword, yet you want me to hide away like a child!_ _Jack,"_ said Nikolas, the Russian, " _You will need me. This will not end well. I know this. I can feel it,"_ he slapped his gut,  _"In my belly!"_ The others laughed but Pitch Black herded him inside anyway. Jack watched Nikolas disappear. Just an old man who'd joined within the last year. A man with stories and kindness that wasn't wasted. _I know what kind of lad you are, Jack,_ Nikolas had said, months ago, _You're the type of boy who used to smile._ He'd slapped Jack hard on the back until he grunted,  _So smile, lad! Don't make an old man like me regret stepping on this train._   Jack liked Nikolas. He watched the box, as if suddenly those hidden inside would open the door and say  _surprise!_ But they never did.

Jack used to stare at it from time time when he was the one picking up the animal shit. He used to imagine going inside and closing the door, disappearing with a thought. Pitch Black closed the door, waved his hands a little for effect, to the slight amusement of his peers, then opened the door again, and they were gone. He’d looked at Jack and grinned.

And so here he was, on his knees in icy mud, being laughed at, at gunpoint. 

“Oh, Mr. Black,” the Lieutenant mused, standing back from Jack and raising the gun once more. Jack concentrated on Toothiana’as sobs, “That does not sound too promising.”

Pitch Black chuckled nervously. “The Americans play it as a mischievous boy who brings winter and frost. We do the same. Not the old woman who makes snow fall by shaking out her bed. There is no,” he frantically searched for the word as the Lieutenant’s finger began to curl around the trigger, “No! No, wait! _Warten_! Er, um, _keine Juden oder homosexuelle_!” His voice rose, angry, frantic. Jack knew it was because once the trigger was pulled,the soldiers would see their immortality, would see their magic, and so would the rest of the crew, who were blind to it. Though he felt Toothiana and Nikolas watched him with eyes that held too much hope for magic.

Jack wondered if he would feel death, just for a moment, and his mind wandered to a place he had urged himself to forget. Someone he had tried not to think of for three years.

He thought of green eyes, a warm smile, a heavy calloused hand settling on the back of his neck, pulling him close, closer, closer. Chapped lips that were warm and molded against his like-

His thoughts stopped, and he bent over in agony, holding his stomach as it churned, power drilled through his veins unmercifully, as the fear from a memory pounded into his skull. He had blocked thoughts of Aster for years, and had never controlled this current of fear.

Jack could see a battlefield. Gray and bleak against a winter sky. Everything looked gray. Desolate. Save for the blood sprayed in the mud, in the air as gunfire peppered the night with fleeting sparks.

He saw Aster, back pressed against the earth in a trench, face dark with mud and gunpowder. He was older, older and grimer, and Jack could feel it. _Fear_.

When they were younger, Jack remembered Aster had a beebee gun. He’d aim, close one eye and say, “ _I got this_ ,” and he always did. Once, he’d shot a bird out of the sky and Jack had whistled low.

“ _Good shot_ ,” he’d said, and Aster had rolled his shoulder, looked embarrassed, but then he’d grinned.

“ _You try. C’mon. Ain’t hard_.”  They were thirteen. He handed Jack the rifle, showed him with careful hands how to hold it. And Jack could almost feel him from that memory alone, whispering in his ear, just inches behind him. He could almost feel the warm fan of his old friend's breath on the back of his neck. There was a crow up in the tree, blinking a beady eye at him. Jack looked up at it, and Aster said, " _Shoot."_

 

 

From his trench in the ground, Aster rose, aimed, fired. Again, again, again. Some of the enemy fell, twirled in their deathdance like ballerinas when hit in the chest, sinking to the mud. The horizon sparked red as bombs burst, shrieked in the sky. And there was a ringing Jack couldn't hear past as shrapnel hit the ground. Aster hurried to reload, fingers stiff. He stalled suddenly. Just for a moment. Another bomb wailed.

His fear put a new strength in Jack's blood. Something bold.

Aster put a hand to his chest. Gulped down air, and in the memory, Jack could hear his thoughts whisper, as another bomb sailed overhead, _I got this_ -

The trench went up in dirt and blood and shrapnel. Jack wondered if he was screaming, or if it was just the battlefield shrieking. The memory refocused. Now the fear of death made him younger, stronger. Aster was looking up at the sky, at a break in the clouds. His hand was over his chest, brushing the same spot, that same pocket.

There was a squelch in the mud as someone neared, boots that came into view. A constant ringing. A blurred sky. Aster began to struggle, to think  _not yet. I don't want to die yet,_  and his heart worked a little harder, skipped a few beats.A face loomed above him, with eyes Jack had just seen. Aster's fingers were scraping over his vest, breath gurgling in his throat, because more than anything, he just wanted to  _see_ one more time-

The German Lieutenant bent down, opened the pocket in Aster's vest he'd been trying to reach. The Lieutenant fished out a picture. A tiny thing. Frayed and ripped and faded.

The Lieutenant tutted. “You poor man,” he said, and Aster made to reach for the picture with bloody fingers, as if he might be able to rise and snatch it away. The Lieutenant flashed it, and Jack saw his own face mirrored back in black and white. 

Then the Lieutenant aimed his gun and fired, and Jack thought _I could have been good for you_.

 

The memory broke, and Jack wasn’t in Italy. He was in Berlin, in the rain, staring at the circus sign, A tear welled up, rolled away. Then another. Another still. But oh, how wonderful, how _alive_ he felt, and the night had never looked more lovely. Jack thought, _what a curse_. The rain kept falling. The Lieutenant cocked an eyebrow at how still Jack had become, how pale.

“Are you afraid now, boy? Do you understand what is happening? Hmm? I trust your performers aren’t on any sort of...narcotic, Mr. Black?”

“No, of course not,” Jack heard the ringmaster say, and he could feel Pitch Black’s burning gaze on his face. But he didn’t look. He wasn’t even sure he could move. A group of soldiers came stomping out of the train, into the mud.

“ _Keiner_ ,” Jack heard a man say with a shrug.

The Lieutenant nodded. “Very well, Mr. Black. It would appear you have a show to put on.” The Lieutenant turned his eyes to Jack.

“I expect,” he said, staring at Jack pointedly, “quite a show.”

Jack slowly raised his eyes to meet the German’s. The rain fell harder.

“Oh I promise you, sir,” Jack said slowly, deliberately, “there ain’t another show like it.”

There was a pause before the Lieutenant pointed at him and laughed. “Oh, Mr. Black, where did you find such a serious character?”

“It’s an interesting story actually, Lieutenant-”

“You might even say,” Jack cut in, and the Lieutenant swiveled his gaze onto him sharply, “That I sold my soul just to be here.”

* * *

 

 "How'd you do it, Jackie?" Toothiana whispered, and Jack looked at himself in the mirror. It was cracked, and the space behind them was cold and gray and damp. The tentflap curled up with a gust of icy wind, and Toothiana shivered violently with it, small hands trying to cover her bare arms.

Jack wordlessly slipped out of his shirt and put it around her shoulders. She looked ashen still. Petrified, and he knew because he could feel it, like the hum of a bug zapper he was drawn to. Her eyes were too large. Her black hair was undone, falling in a plunge down her back. She hadn't tried to fix it, to put it up with her headdress. She said, "I miss Sandy."

Sanderson had gone into the Portal of Mystery after a few choice words.

"How'd you look at them and still be able to act all brave?" She watched her lips quiver in the mirror, painted red and bright, the only colorful thing left about her.

But Jack didn't tell her he hadn't been brave at all. Instead, he'd followed orders when he could have been brave. He watched himself in the mirror as the circus began outside in the night.

He wanted to see  _himself_ in the mirror when he looked, but he didn't see any Jack he knew. It chilled him, and suddenly Jack remembered his father, remembered how Will turned from the man he knew to a wisp of a man. _You have to know who you are,_ his mother had told him. He hadn't spoken to his mother since before the war. Now letters home were too risky. Jack's hands shook, just slightly. He could still see Aster, even in the mirror, clinging to a little picture of Jack, and he wondered what this feeling was as he stared at himself, as he heard the Marionettes sing and the German soldiers clap and cat-call outside.

" _Und nun meine herren,"_ he heard Pitch Black cry out over the wind, " _Bereiten sie sich für einen mann anders als sie je gesehen haben!"_ There was a dramatic pause, a drumroll. Jack imagined Pitch Black in his cape, billowing in the wind.

Toothiana whispered under her breath, "and now gentlemen, prepare yourselves for a man unlike you've ever seen..." tears were welling in the corners of her eyes as she applied more kohl. "That's Wolfman," she said. "We better be ready. We're on soon."

" _Wolf Man!"_ Pitch Black cried a second later, to a chorus of  _ahhh's_ and  _boo's._

Jack nodded mutely. It didn't matter where he looked. He saw Aster. He watched Toothiana to keep from screaming, to keep from reliving Aster's death over and over. She methodically applied lipstick beside him. Another coat. She fastened her teeth and her headdress and her glitter. Jack mussed his hair. Slipped into his costume and his mask so he didn't have to look at himself in the mirror, at no one but Jack Frost. Suddenly, as the music for Wolf Man reached a crescendo, and lightning split the sky once again, the tent flap ripped open. Toothiana jerked in surprise, and Jack's eyes widened.

The Lieutenant stepped nimbly inside, quickly dismissing those straggling behind him harshly. He could have been a fine man. Tall, flaxen hair smartly cut without a strand out of place. Intelligent blue eyes that held an unnerving stare, a strong jaw. But all Jack saw was a man who'd grown ugly. And he  _hated_ him. The cold outside seemed to plummet, and flurries of snow began to fall, stinging like the rain.

Toothiana's fear began roll out in waves, and Jack closed his eyes. Breathed in deeply, until he could have moved mountains. He opened them again, and this time, the Lieutenant was motioning for Toothiana to leave.

"Go along now, dear," he said. Toothiana paused. "I said," he repeated, "go along." Jack nodded to her, and Toothiana scurried away, disappearing into the noise and music and magic of outside. The Lieutenant walked to a chair in the middle of the tent and took a seat. Jack remained standing, mind whirring. He could taste no fear from the man before him.

"Tell me, Jack," the Lieutenant began, crossing his legs at the knee, "about how you came to join this freak show. You said something very interesting earlier tonight. You said you'd sold your soul."

Jack blinked. He heard the music that signaled the end of Wolf Man's act. Another drum roll, more shouts, and Pitch Black introducing Matilde. " _Und jetzt, Königin der Kannibale Matilde!"_

He could hear the army laughing. He imagined Matilde on stage in her red sequins with a bucket of pork ribs. Jack shook his head a little. He saw the Lieutenant in his thoughts, looking at the picture of Jack. And there was a likeness to the Lieutenant, something that reminded Jack of the ringmaster. It unnerved him. He swallowed hard.

"Just an expression, sir," Jack lied. The Lieutenant hummed and uncrossed his legs. In two long stides he was right before Jack, and he slipped his hand into an inner breast pocket.

"You seem to be a very interesting young man," the Lieutenant whispered, and Jack felt his body freeze, his anger rear, when the Lieutenant flashed him the picture of himself that Aster had hidden away in his vest.

"Is this you?" he asked. Jack didn't say anything.

The Lieutenant sighed, thoughtful. "I had my concerns about this circus. My doubts. It seems," he said, tucking it away, "that my instincts were correct. Thank you, Jack, for bringing it to me. I can see the  _filth_ underneath that you're trying to conceal with a few magic tricks." He caught Jack's chin roughly with his fingers, squeezing Jack's jaw. Still, he said nothing. Their eyes locked. The wind howled. Snow scurried into the tent.

"What were you doing," he said, a little too closely, "in that young man's breastpocket?" He released Jack's chin, looked him over. Jack felt sick. Outraged. The wind blew harder, and he imagined it could carry him away.

"Where are the Jews hidden in that train?" The music seeped into the tent, and Jack heard the Marionettes sing  _watch your darkest nightmares turn to glee!_ It was then he realized his nightmare was right before him.

"I already know who you are. There's no use in staying silent. You're a dead man, Jack Frost." There was a hunger in his eyes, and he roughly pulled Jack close, holding his chin.

"Maybe I can see the temptation," he whispered gruffly, and Jack ground his teeth together.  _Don't fight,_ Pitch Black had ordered, and he was bound under contract. He stood there, seething until the cold outside seemed like a release. A calloused finger traced his bare shoulder. Jack thought of Aster and his soul seemed to rip. He thought of Aster jumping from the train, three years ago, leaving nothing but moonlight and a whiff of hay behind.

_I could have been good for you._

There was a pit inside him, growing larger, and larger and Jack wondered if it would swallow him whole.  _I couldn't have left anyway,_ he told himself, and back then, Pitch Black had looked different. _  
_

"Maybe that is why you joined the circus," the Lieutenant mused, "for the temptation. Maybe you really did sell your soul to the devil. To that foolish man Pitch Black. Ah yes, I can see it now." He chucled. "And yet, you look so different from the boy in the picture." There was a heavy pause. The Lieutenant leaned in closer. Jack tensed.

" _Ist Ihre haut wirklich so kalt, Jack Frost_?" the Lieutenant murmured, and that's when Jack broke. The wind screamed as Jack shoved him away with more force than he needed. The Lieutenant grunted, skidding across the cold ground, blood spurting out of his nose. The snow fell heavier, and it whipped in eddies in the tent, like living things, like ghosts. The Lieutenant grabbed his gun off his belt, fired. It went through Jack's shoulder, and he grunted, searing white-hot pain lancing through his entire arm. Outside the music grew louder and louder until it could have filled the world with nightmare lullabies and Pitch Black's laughs.

Jack took another step. The Lieutenant fired again. This time it hit square in the chest, and Jack staggered under the weight, the pain. He coughed, writhed. Fell heavily and thought of Aster, gripping the bleeding hole in his chest. He wondered suddenly, if he would die and then come right back as his breathing grew shallow and he tasted dirt. But he didn't die.

"" _Und Sie bleiben unten._ Stay down," he heard the Lieutenant whisper with relief, placing the gun back on his belt, and that's when Jack stood up. He relished it then, the feeling, because the Lieutenant's face grew pale, ashen, before turning pink with rage, but Jack knew he was scared. And he laughed, hollow and short. He walked forward slowly. He imagined shooting him in the face.

"You gonna kill me, Lieutenant?" He licked blood from the corner of his mouth like a wild thing, and he laughed at how the fear charged, electrified, right through his heart. The Lieutenant grappled with himself, grabbing for his gun again with shaking fingers. Jack thought, he must look different right now, and maybe his eyes were even glowing, because the Lieutenant was shaking so damn hard he couldn't hold the gun straight.

" _Halten Sie sich, meine Herren!"_ Jack heard Pitch Black shout, and the drums were rolling going again, steady, like a wave growing higher. He kicked the Lieutenant in the face, satisfied as the the soldier yelped and dropped his gun. But he suddenly seemed to remember his courage, because he pulled hard on Jack's leg, bringing him down with a  _thump_ and a grunt. The Lieutenant's heavy hands went over Jack's face, trying to forecfully hold Jack down so he could crawl over him and grab the gun, but Jack wasn't deterred. He bit down on the hand over his mouth, and the Lieutenant yelled, but didn't relinquish his hold.

He was strong.

But Jack was stronger.

Wriggling away, Jack managed to get an arm free, just as the circus began to play the music for his act, this time Pitch spoke in English, as if he couldn't remember the words in German. "For an act so chilling, you'll never look at frost the same way again!"

It was odd, but he thought of his act right then, how they'd probably have to send his understudy on stage instead. His hand shot up, wrapped around the Lieutenant's throat, squeezed. The Lieutenant gurgled, and Jack kneed him in the gut, shoving him off, scrambling for the gun.

His hands shook, and the Lieutenant coughed, staring at up him with wide eyes.

"This is how you killed him," Jack said through clenched teeth, "Just like this, but this time, you're the one who's gonna be lookin' at me." He didn't notice the tears, falling silently.

The Lieutenant swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing. He said, "It was my duty."

The music began to play, and Jack aimed the gun. The Lieutenant shook his head, a lone tear slipping down his cheek. "Who _are_ you?" he wondered.

"Jack," said Jack as he pulled the trigger, and the wind howled behind him, blowing snow and sleet into the tent, "Jack Frost."

For a moment, he stood in the cold, watching the dark halo spread behind the Lieutenant's head. He thought of Aster again, and fell to his knees. let the gun slip from his fingers as he wailed, his fingers knotting in his hair, tugging at it. Then he heard a voice. "Well, well."

He scambled upright, grabbing the gun, but stalled.

"Go on, shoot me, too," the old woman dared. She hobbled inside, dragging her rags and shawl. She was peering at him through her one good eye, her glass one winking in the oil-lamp light. She groaned as she took a seat in the center of the tent. "I'm fucking old as dirt anyway. You'd do me a kindness." She blew into her hands, and that's when Jack saw her for who she really was.

He couldn't hide his surprise, even in his anguish. "Prockett?" He set the gun down.

"The same," she answered with a cough and a frown. "Well, you just gonna gawk at me like that or are ya gonna ask me why I'm here?"

Jack didn't say anything. Prockett cursed, "Damn brat. Well, looks like I found that lunatic Viktor a tad too late, hmm? Lookit you," she sneered, and Jack felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, "and you done went and shot that man through the head. Not that I'm mad at ya." She squinted at the Lieutenant and spat.

"But, I certainly didn't bet on Black makin' deals the way he did." She shook her head. "Damn fool."

"What are you talking about?" The tears on his face still hadn't dried, and the pit in his chest hadn't gotten any smaller. He was still charged, jumpy, and the body of the Lieutenant behind him made him feel ill. He stumbled over to a corner of the tent to be sick. Prockett shook her head at him.

"Pansy," she taunted. "Gonna kill a man you better be able to look him in the eye after he's dead!" She spat again, moving around the clod of tobacco in her lip. Jack was shivering in a corner, his mind reeling, the high from the fear confusing him. He shook his head, like it would fall right out of his ear and he'd be able to make sense of everything.

"What'd you kill that man for?" Prockett asked, and Jack gasped, swiping at his face.

"He killed my best friend," he choked out, and the tears came again.

"Aw, shush, don't need any of that right now, ya hear?" Prockett scolded, then, more gently as Jack tried to control his heaves and sobs, she added, "Plenty of time to cry when this is all over, son. I promise you that."

"I've been following Black for too many years to count. When he left the country, I followed that old bastard. Took me all that time to find him stuck here, in Germany." She shook her head. When Jack looked at her she shook her again. "Me? Aw naw. I didn't put that damn curse on him. Naw. He done that to himself. Let's see though, a century ago, my nana left her coven. Some man wronged her real good, and she put a curse on him." She laughed. "Those were the dark days, kid. No God. Only shadows. I don't like them shadows. Scare the shit out of a seasoned old bitch like me. Anyway," she spat again, making herself comfortable, "She'd been pregnant with his baby, see, and he pretended he was gonna go take care of her. Instead, he left her out in the woods to die on a winter night, hoping the wolves would make a snack outta her or the cold would get her. And oh boy, when she found that two-timin' ass later..." she trailed, laughing, "oh boy, I tell you kid, he got the  _scare_ of a lifetime, and then he had to live with it. He had to live like that until he could get some poor, unfortunate soul to take his hand and take it away."

Jack sniffed. "Pitch Black," he guessed, and Prockett nodded. 

"Just the same. Poor fool. And let me tell you, kid, he's cursed himself. There's a way to fight shadows, see. A way so the nightmares don't make you who you are. But Pitch Black never fought. And if you're not careful, you'll be the same. Poor little bastard." She sighed.

Jack watched her. "Then how?" he asked, desperately, "How do I fight 'em? How do I not become him?" He trembled as he said it. Prockett waved him off.

"Easy, son. Easy as pie. You don't let all those black things in your heart turn into someone you're not. SImple as that. You still got time."

"But he has my name," Jack said, angry now.

Prockett nodded. "Ah yes. His binding contracts. I couln't believe he'd figured those out. He's a tricky one. But see, kid, the minute that lonely old fool turned you into Jack Frost, he ripped your damn contract in two without ever knowing it."

Jack stared at her, eyes wide. He was unsure if he was horribly angry, because he had listened all these years. Listened like he had to. Or if he was relieved. He could run. Right now. But he stayed rooted to the ground.

"After my mother found out the curse my grandmother had cast, she made it her mission to try and find the cursed soul, relieve him of it. Take those shadows out of the world. But it didn't work. She couldn't save him, and he wanted to die so badly. She told him the only way to die was to pass it on. She didn't know you could pass it and still live. I guess it must depend on your willpower. But once Pitch Black came to have it, it was my turn. I've been following him ever since. But apparently," she looked at Jack, "I didn't do so great of a job. And for that, I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you how to lift it. But I don't know how. Only  know how to keep the shadows at bay. I don't know them secrets. Secrets so old only the moon knows how." She pulled a flask of whiskey from her sleeve and took a hearty gulp. Jack declined when she offered it to him.

"Didn't know I'd see you here. What a surprise. I still remember you and that one boy, the Mund kid. Aw shit the both of ya were a couple of troublemakers if I ever did see any, but hell if you didn't balance each other out. I'm sorry to hear about him. He was a good kid. But if I were you, boy, I'd run. Right now."

Jack almost got up. Almost ran out of the tent without a thought, without a coat, with nothing at all but his mask and leotard. But he paused. "What about the others?"

Prockett shrugged. "Take 'em with you if you want. You're like him now, you see? Only, you're not corrupt. You still got something light inside of ya. And I think my nana must have taken pity on your pool old soul, 'cause I saw the wind and the snow buck up when you did. Heh. Long as they take your hand, switch their allegiances, it ain't no different."

Jack digested this, looking over at the Lieutenant. 

"I'll take care of 'im," she said, and suddenly, with a snap of her fingers, Prockett  _was_ the Lieutenant, and the body on the floor was unrecognizable. Some man he'd never seen before. She shrugged. "I'll lose 'em soon. Play dead. Get shot. Somethin' good. But you listen to me, boy." Her eyes bored into his. "You ever do somethin' like this again out of the cold of your heart, and you'll just welcome the shadows, make 'em eat you alive. Only the love for your boy that kept 'em at bay this time, but that's it. Ain't no more times, 'cause the rest of you is already gone and dark, and there ain't no changin' that. You took a life today. And yeah, he took a lot of lives. He wasn't a good man. But you don't want to lose yourself entirely to this curse. You know who you are. Protect it." With that she turned around, strode over to a record player and started playing swing like Jack had disappeared, like there wasn't a dead man on the floor.

"You be careful. 'Cause now I got my eye on you, too, Jack Frost."

She didn't turn to watch him leave. Jack tore out of the tent, into the night, into the music and fear and laughter, bare feet skimming through slush and mud and ice. He ran into Toothiana and they fell in a heap while she let out a cry.

"Jack! Jack! Where the  _hell_ were you, I had to go on without-" he covered her mouth with a hand, and stared at him, wide-eyed.

"We're gettin' out of here," he said, and Toothiana shook her head, didn't move when he tried to drag her.

"No, Jack.  _No!"_ she shrieked, ripping herself away from him. "You know what happens when people run." She was afraid again.

Jack shook his head. "Not this time. I promise. But you gotta trust me." He held out his hand and she looked at it dubiously. For one horrible moment, he thought she was going to say no. The lights from the show were blazing, and sparks from firecrackers lit up the cold sky. She put her small hand in his.

"Alright," she said, and he spirited her away. They picked up Wolf Man, they picked up Matilde, and when the camp went abuzz over an "assasination attempt", the circus was dismissed after a brief interrogation from the "Lieutenant". They were driven back to the train in silence, and Jack could feel Pitch Black's gaze on his neck, burning. 

He was going to leave that night, under the moon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

Word spread like wildfire in the train.  _Jack! Jack Frost! He's gonna get us out of here!_ Jack left Pitch waiting in his car.

And it was the only thing that kept him sane, their whispers, their excitment, kept him from thinking of Aster and the Lieutenant and Prockett. Nikolas laughed when he saw Jack and asked how the show went. "It is a funny thing," Nikolas said, "But I had a feeling it would not turn out. This is good. It is good to see you return safely, my friend." Jack looked at him and shrugged, not wanting to say it hadn't. But he had a feeling Nikolas already knew, he just hadn't said anything.

He looked away to watch Toothiana scoop up Sandy in a hug, watched Sandy touch her face and demand to know if she was fine. "I swear, baby, I swear," the little man growled, "If any of them touched or hurt you-"

She only laughed, but it was a tired sound.

And one by one they took his hand, and one by one they left the train, walked into the night. And when Pitch Black appeared, they all fell silent, eyes skittering between Jack and the ringmaster.

"What are you doing?" the ringmaster asked, and his voice was so smooth. The onlookers fell silent.

Jack held his gaze defiantly. "Skippin' town," he said, and Pitch Black laughed.

"You can't do that," he chided, like he was speaking to a child. "Come inside. We're headed to Cologne tomorrow.  _Now._ " His voice had deepened, grown serious, and Jack knew that tone. In and out of bed. He almost laughed at the thought. Pitch watched him warily.

"You don't own me," Jack said. "Not anymore." Pitch Black rose to his full height, angry. But he chuckled.

"Oh, Jack, and just  _what_ are you going to do out there alone? Without me? How will you survive? Do you really think," Pitch Black stepped down from the train, and Jack tried to quell his doubt, "That you could live out there? That you could have a  _future_ outside of what I've already given you? You came to  _me,_ Jackson, and don't you forget that. I gave you what you wanted. I gave you a new life. I gave you reason to forget about what you left behind. Yet you would leave? How interesting. You made the deal, Jackson. Not me. And you haven't paid your debt." Jack could hear whispers behind him. Doubt. 

Pitch Black was standing before him, eyes bright as embers. Cruel. "You could go, but no one will ever accept you for who you are. Do you think your mother will still love you when she sees what you've become? Or that boy you left behind so you could be here with me?" He curled a finger under Jack's chin. "They'll see you for who you really are, Jackson, and they  _will_ fear you." His words resonated deeply, and Jack looked away, looked back to see the small group he was going to take with.

"And just how are you going to provide for these people? This is war, Jackson. Do you really think you can smuggle them out?" He nodded to Nikolas, to Sanderson. "They'll be dead men without me. You're being selfish. Reckless. Now get inside. I have your name. I have  _all_ their names!" He swept his arms wide, voice rising. "Leave, and you're only condemning yourselves to death." He crossed his arms, nodded as if to say  _go on, I'd like to see you try._

Jack glowered at him. "Get out of my way," he said through clenched teeth. Something changed in Pitch Black's face then, and Jack felt it: fear. It invigorated him. Pitch Black's cruel mouth went slack, a desperate light in his eyes.

"You cannot possibly leave," he said quietly. "You cannot."

Jack shoved past him, cruelly, angrily, and Pitch Black stumbled aside, dumbfounded, afraid, angry. "This is your last chance," he said. "Go inside. We'll talk about this later."

Jack looked back, and saw that the other were watching, waiting for something to happen. They had hope, he realized. He looked ahead, and wondered what would happen when he took that final step and broke away. For so long he'd dreamed of it, and now the possibility of it made him dubious. He swallowed.

"I know you, Jackson," Pitch tried again. "I know your heart. And there will never be another like me who will know you so well. I _know_ you. And you're a boy who's afraid of the world. But you and me together," he smirked, "we'll make a magnificent world. We  _are_ a team. And together, we'll take the fear out of the world and make it ours. Together."

For a moment, Jack hesitated, weighed the Ringmaster's words. _I_ _know you, Jack._  "You don't know me," said Jack, and took a step. Then another, and then he ran, arms spread wide like wings. It felt like freedom, like flying, and the pit in chest seemed to abate, just enough to laugh. He didn't think of the Lieutenant. He didn't think of Pitch Black. He thought of what he'd tell his mother in his next letter. He wondered if he could figure out where Aster was buried when he went home. Home. He'd missed it. He ran faster. He ran and he laughed and he skipped and he cried. He looked up at the moon, heavy with all its secrets, and the wind seemed to carry him forward, beckoning him with a sigh. He turned around, and hollered at the group.

"What are you waiting for?" he cried. "Come on!"

"Don't do this, Jack," Pitch shouted, but Jack ignored him. His friends looked one another, looked at Jack, and it was Toothiana who first broke free, yelling, then Sanderson who ran after her. But she didn't die, and neither did Sanderson, and the rest ambled forward, sparing one last glance at the man who'd kept their souls.

"Don't leave me like this, Jackson," Pitch cried, and Jack turned.

"You haven't seen the last of me, Pitch Black," Jack hollered back, the cold making his lungs hurt, "I promise you that. Where you are, we'll be, taking the fear right from under you feet!" With that he and his gang escaped into the night, leaving Pitch Black just a chip of shadow on the railroad, with only the moon to witness their secrets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

_Dear Mama,_

_I'm coming home soon. I know I scared you real bad for a long time there, but I couldn't write. Today we saw American troops on the road, tanks and guns and grit. And I thought of Aster, and how he fought, and I wished that I could have been there too. There's so much fear right now. With the concentration camps, and the death, and it makes all seem bleak, and then I don't know what to do without him. Like I didn't know what to do without Laura. Without Pops. But I guess we manage one or another, huh? You' ve shown me that, and so did Aster.  You both have shown me what it's like to be strong, when I ran and tried to escape it all. A man once told me I was afraid of the world, and maybe he was right. But I know who I am now. And I'm sorry I had to put you through that, Ma. I am. I know it's a long time coming, but I am. But I promise I'll make it up to you when I see you again. I've got those scarves for the ladies in your club, like I said I'd bring. And you tell them your son is Jack Frost, and that he's the owner of the best  new show in town, and they're gonna see it in Vegas  or Broadway one day, you mark my words, and to look for me under a Big Top. And I'll make them grin, and I'll make you proud. Maybe it's not a lawyer, or a doctor, but you'll see it's worth something. I thought, when I visit, you could take me to Aster's grave. It's something I need to see. Oh, Nikolas made you something, since I missed the last three Christmases and then some. It's a little wood menagerie, with a camel and an elephant. I hope you like it. I thought you would. Just make sure Twinkle doesn't scrtach it all up. See you soon._

_All my love,_

_Jack_

* * *

_  
_

_Epilogue_

_  
_It was summer, 1968, and Jack was feeling _good._ The lights were bright, the people were entertained, the show was sold out, and Jack didn't know a feeling like the spotlight.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, try not to hold your breath, and don't blink," he grinned, and there were whoops from the crowd. The lights focused on him, a tunnel of blue light. He laughed a little into his microphone, pacing on the stage, knowing how to make himself spotlight. He spread his arms wide with a flourish, looked into his sleeves, milked a few chuckles from the crowd. Just then, there were whistles and cat-calls, and Jack turned to see Toothiana sashay on the stage, in all her glitter and lipstick. Jack made a show of looking like a man caught with cupid's arrow, and burst open his vest, as if to have his heart break free, but instead, only doves shot out, cooing and flutterng into the stands. The people  _ahhh'ed_ and clapped. He and Toothiana bowed.

She whispered to him as they stood upright ("And now, ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your seats,") "Sandy says he saw the train comin' in last night. Looks like Black's back in town." Jack grinned at this. 

He continued, "'Cause you don't want to lose a finger now," the crowd laughed, "so keep your applause close, and welcome our own, Nikolas, Swordmaster of the North." The drums rolled, and Nikolas appeared, brandishing twin swords. The crowd tensed, hushed, as Jack helped Toothiana onto a board and strapped her in. She blew a kiss to the crowd, to North. She was vertical, vulnerable.

"And now," Jack whispered into the microphone, "We need absolute silence." The crowd hushed, enthralled, North raised a Sword, and threw. Someone squealed in the crowd, and Jack enjoyed her fear. He hummed a little. North tossed another sword, and it landed with a  _twang_ , just inches from scratching Toothiana's neck. She smiled all the while. Then came the daggers, and a short moment later, the act was done, and the crowd was cheering after holding their breath. Nikolas milked it, slapping his gut and gently helping Toothiana down onto the stage.

Jack raised his hands, motioned for silence. "Now for our final act, we need a volunteer." Hands shot, and Jack scanned the crowd. His heart skipped a beat when he landed on green eyes in the middle row. It was like time stopped. He shook his head. There were days he thought he saw Aster, and then there were days he wished the ghosts would leave him alone. There were too many now. Laura. Mama. Pops. Aster. Others. He smiled brightly, pointig at the young man.

"You, sir," he curled a finger. The crowd laughed, and the young man stood. Tanned, dark hair, quick smile, brooding brow. Toothiana helped him on stage, looking him over with a hooded glance. Jack threw an arm over his shoulder, putting the microphone under his chin.

"What's your name and where're you from?"

The man drawled in an accent, "Australia. Name's Aster."

Jack's heart nearly stopped, but he caught himself. "Australia!" he cried, "Let's have a hand for this young man right here, traveling so far away from home just to be here with us tonight!" The crowd clapped, and this different Aster looked down, as if embarrassed. And Jack saw something he wanted. He grinned his good-boy grin, the one that had captured many a performer, and he'd be a liar if he said he didn't have names locked away in a box. 

He reached out, took his wrist, and turned away with him. "You ever seen a magic show like this, Aster?" he asked, and Aster shrugged.

"Show me a show actually worth remembering, Frost, and I'll say no."

Jack laughed.

Later that night, when Jack lounged in Wardrobe, tie loose, beer in one hand, watching Toothiana dance to the radio and the others change out of costume, a knock came to the door. Someone was waiting for him, security said. Wanted to see him in the hall. The gang cat-called ("Who's heart you breaking now, Jackie?") and Jack grinned, honey-slow. He took a swig, let his sunglasses fall back into place, and slipped into his blue jacket like it was a second skin.

He walked from wardrobe with a spring in his step,  _Sympathy for the Devil_ on the radio making him laugh when he pushed open the door. "You watch me show this kid what magic really is," he said with a wink.

And there never was a better magician than the one and only Jack Frost.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this ended when Jack shot the Lieutenant. But, later, it turned into something more. I didn't want to make it much longer, but I couldn't help trying this ending out. I tried my best to keep all themes and tie all loose ends in 4 chapters, and manage to make Jack a mischievious performer who still took names, which makes him (I hope) a little darker. So. Was this a satisfying end? Did it feel too rushed? Too jumbled? Let me know what you think since i'm trying it out and ended it in such a short time. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from dreamwidth:
> 
> Jack has run away from home and hasn't told anyone, even his best friend, where he was going. He needs to find a place to sleep and a way to make money to survive. He comes across a peculiar traveling horror themed circus and decides that this would be perfect. It'll probably be fun and he'll get to see different places! 
> 
> After the show Jack sneaks back stage to speak to the Ring Master, Pitch Black, who immediately gives him a job. Jack realizes very quickly that he's sold his soul to the devil and he'll never escape. Once you join the circus you can never leave. 
> 
> The circus is magical, and Pitch absorbs the fear from the audience to gain power.
> 
> Why Jack runs away from home is up to any fillers.
> 
> Bonus Points!  
> +100: Bunnymund is Jack's best friend.  
> +500: Jack actually gets scared by one of the circus folk. (Think something like the "Scare Zones" at Halloween Horror Nights).  
> +1000: Jack's best friend goes crazy trying to find Jack (He has feelings for Jack).  
> +INFINTY: Pitch slowly shows Jack how...pleasurable the dark side can be. Pitch slowly corrupts Jack and Dark!Jack is the end result.


End file.
